Compiègne Slow Death Camp 1941-42. France, 1944 - dedicated copy by author

Compiègne Slow Death Camp 1941-42. France, 1944 - dedicated copy by author

Le Camp de la mort lente COMPIEGNE 1941-42 - Compiègne Slow Death Camp 1941-42, by Jewish prisoner Jean Jacques Bernard, Published by ALBIN MICHAEL - Paris 1944 - First edition - the first testimony published in France about what happened in the camps. A dedicated copy by the author. On the page next to the title page is a photograph of the author as taken on the day of his liberation from the camp on March 13, 1942. French.

"One of my friends told me "No one will believe us", and on my behalf I only wrote the truth... Those who saw me as a walking body in the week after my release I have the impression that they suddenly encountered a reality that until then had been far from their hearts... Objectivity is my first duty in this testimony...". From the author's words at the beginning of the book.

Testimony of Jean-Jacques Bernard [1888-1972], the French Jewish playwright, son of playwright Tristan Bernard, who was captured by the Nazis and taken to the Compiègne-Royallieu camp in December 1941. Bernard survived the camps and wrote the testimony before us less than a year after his liberation. In December 1941, two German soldiers appeared at his home, separated him from his wife and children, and ordered him to go to a truck waiting outside within 10 minutes. He was taken by the Nazis along with thirty other neighbors and his cousin for interrogation by the Gestapo, while for hours he was still close to his home because the Nazis delayed picking up more Jews from nearby apartments, and could have easily escaped, but knew that it would cost the life of another Jew, so he sat in a truck and waited for things to come. (Bernard writes that the mistake of his life was that when the Nazis appeared at his home and gave him 10 minutes to get organized, he did not think about the important things to take with him on the trip, and took with him some very basic things such as a towel and toothbrush, which were later of no use) At the end of that night he was taken for interrogation by the Gestapo together with a large group of Jews who had come from several cities in France. Some of whom he knew, none of whom had any idea what they had been arrested for. Among those questioned was René Blum, brother of Leon Blum. Bernard describes at length the interrogation that came as a complete surprise to them, writing: "I have never seen so many Jews concentrated in one place". The Nazis took him to the Compiègne camp, and during a few months of being in the camp in harsh physical conditions, he lost about half his weight. In his testimony, he recounts in detail everything that happened to him at Compiègne during those months. He survived the harsh winter of 1941 with great difficulty with lengthy roll-calls that took place daily at a temperature of 15 degrees below zero, when hunger and cold subdued some of his good friends, and he himself tells of several times that he was a step away from death, and at the last moment was saved by a portion of food he obtained, and various favors that happened to him when he was on the verge of exhaustion. Bernard was released thanks to the efforts of his wife, who from the day he was caught did everything in her power to secure his release. She knew an outside doctor who knew a German doctor from the camp, and through him Bernard was released to a hospital outside the camp for treatment, and from there in fact he was freed. His release form, written on the recommendation of the same German doctor, reads: "Not suitable for life in the camp".

As soon as he was liberated, already in March 1942, he began to write the detailed testimony before us, because he wanted to publicize to the outside world the daily atrocities taking place in the camps as quickly as possible, in order to try to stop the horror. When the book was published in France at the end of 1944, the book had a great resonance - the entire French press quoted excerpts from the book, and it received many responses throughout France. This was the first publication published in France in which a Jewish prisoner detailed the terrible manner in which the Nazis murdered Jews through no fault of their own, and the daily occurrences in a "German concentration camp" under Nazi command.

Rare copy dedicated by the author. We didn't find any other copies with his dedication.

246, [3] p. Minor tears in the upper part of the spine. Good Condition.