Eyewitness Auschwitz: Thee Years in the Gas Chambers - New York 1979 - first edition - copy with author's dedication

Eyewitness Auschwitz: Thee Years in the Gas Chambers - New York 1979 - first edition - copy with author's dedication

Eyewitness Auschwitz: Thee Years in the Gas Chambers - The book of the Jew Filip Muller, a member of the Zondekommando unit who witnessed for a long time, the process of extermination of the Jews in Auschwitz - New York 1979 - first edition (with a foreword by Prof. Yehuda Boyar). A copy with the author's dedication.

Philip Müller [1922-2013] Slovak Jew, Holocaust survivor, one of the last forced laborers in the Sonderkommando unit in Auschwitz, the largest and most active extermination camp in World War II and the Holocaust. He witnessed with his own eyes the process of extermination of the Jews in the camp, survived the hardships of the camp and recounts his testimony in the book before us. Muller was born in Serd, Czechoslovakia. In April 1942, when he was twenty years old, he was sent to the Auschwitz camp in one of the first transports to the camp. Prisoner number 29236 was tattooed on his arm, and he was sent to construction work in the camp's crematorium and installing gas chambers. Starting in June 1943, he was forced to work in the Sonderkommando unit which was responsible for putting the Jews in the gas chambers and burning the bodies. Philip witnessed "the families, towns and cities of the Jews who were absorbed into the camp". In the camp he was involved in instructing the Nazis to burn the bodies of the dead in ovens. Müller's Sonderkommando unit handled new prisoner deliveries on a daily basis in an area dubbed the "Cleaning Zone". As part of his duties, Mueller used to assure the prisoners that they were safe and that nothing bad would happen to them, while he prepared the gas chambers for action. After the Jews were exterminated in the gas chambers, he was tasked with entering them together with other prisoners, and sorting the murdered according to their body size and weight. And this is in order to maximize the amount of bodies that will be burned per hour. After sorting, he and the other members of the Sonderkommando lifted the bodies and loaded them into the crematorium. The clothes of the murdered were collected and sinned, and every item of value found on them was taken by the SS men, or stolen by one of the prisoners in order to trade it for food or medicine.

While working in the camp, Muller collected written testimonies of the atrocities he saw, in order to take them out of the camp and publish them outside of it. He obtained the plan of the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria and the gas chambers, and also managed to get his hands on lists of the names of the SS members who worked there and lists of the shipments that arrived at the camp. He also obtained a label from a can of the Zyklon B gas that was used to kill in the gas chambers. Müller passed these documents to his fellow prisoners Alfred Wetzler and Rudolf Verbe who escaped from Auschwitz-Birkenau in April 1944 (see also item 100).

Philip Müller is one of the few prisoners who survived Auschwitz who witnessed the murder process from start to finish, and who accurately described all the stages of the process of extermination of the Jews in Auschwitz - the entry of the Jews into the gas chambers, the sorting of the bodies and their burning, and the changes that the crematorium structure underwent according to the demands of the Nazis in the camp during his time as a prisoner in the Sonderkommando. Many chapters in the book are very difficult to read emotionaly, due to the difficult scenes, and the terrible experiences that Philip describes due to his role in the camp, so that the reader is exposed to the horrors of Auschwitz in the most terrible way.

In one of the Chapters, Muller tells about a creepy incident that happened to him in the camp. After three years in which he watched thousands of Jewish prisoners being executed every day, he could not bear it mentally and tried to commit suicide. He entered a gas chamber while the poisonous gas was being pumped into him, and describes in his book what happened when he approached the murder chamber: he saw rural people singing the "HaTikva" anthem and the Czech national anthem while being put into the chamber, parents hugging their children tightly, he joined this group into the gas chamber , and after a few minutes a girl approached him and addressed him with the words: "We understand that you chose to die with us of your own free will, your decision is pointless: since it does not help anyone... We must die, but you still have a chance to save your life. You must return to the camp and tell everyone about our last hours. You must explain to them that they must free themselves of all illusion. They must fight, it is better than dying here helplessly. It will be easier for them, because they have no children. As for you, you may survive this terrible tragedy and then you will have to tell to everyone about what happened to you" (page 113). The girls dragged him to the door of the gas chamber, and he was pushed out straight at the feet of the SS men. Stark, who was one of his commanders in the area of the gas chambers (he often tells about Stark's cruelty) hit him hard, cursed him and told him: "Get it into your stupid head, we decide how long you stay alive and when you die, not you...! ".

As a result of this experience Philip did believe that he had to survive so that he and other survivors could tell about what happened in the camp. Müller remained a prisoner in the special unit of Auschwitz until January 1945. His release from Nazi persecution came only in May 1945, with the surrender of Nazi Germany and the liberation of the Mauthausen camp. Mueller testified for the first time about the horrors of the camp while in hospital. His words were recorded in a collection of testimonies in Czech. Müller even testified at the second Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt held in 1964. He was also among the interviewees in Claude Lanzmann's documentary film "Shoah" (see here). Since 1969 he has lived in the West. Died on November 9, 2013, aged 91.

The book is accompanied by eight plates of difficult photographs of the death crematoria in Auschwitz, and of Jews being led to their deaths. At the end of the book are diagrams drawn by Philip of the various wings in Auschwitz.

XII, [2], 180 + 8 photographic plates. Hardcover with the original dust jacket. Very good condition.