V německém zajetí - Svědectví o Osvětimi, Buchenwaldu, Dachau a Doře – Beneš Jiří (2019)

The war memoirs of Jiří Beneš, the nephew of President Edvard Beneš, were published just six months after the end of the war and are exceptional for their content and the author's identity, who was persecuted during the occupation due to his familial relationship with the president. He was first arrested by the Gestapo in 1940. He was interned at Pankrác and, after a series of interrogations at the Petschek Palace, was released. He was arrested a second time in January 1943 and was imprisoned until May 1945, primarily in German concentration camps Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Dora, where he was forced to work as a slave in the production of secret German weapons V1 and V2. The book is a comprehensive and thorough document about the situation of prisoners in German concentration camps, notable for its calm and factual narrative. It captures in detail the specific inhumane treatment of prisoners, their torture and killing, as well as the overall horrifying atmosphere of extermination camps. Throughout the work, the author's question resonates: How did it happen that a leading, highly cultured European nation descended into such inhumanity? "The war is over, and time slowly dries the tears. The Germans are subjected to punishment. We, who experienced the German occupation and survived the German concentration camps, know that it is a deserved punishment, although many of us assumed...