935307
Prisoner Letter from the Dachau Concentration Camp
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”I am well and I can tell you that I already weigh 57 kilos. . . .
You ask me what you should send me. I don’t require anything . . .
ordinary, only what you can spare and what doesn’t cause you much work or concern.”
Autograph letter signed, Your father Vlacek, three pages, 6" x 8¾", with integral leaf containing the address, Dachau Concentration Camp, Dachau, [Germany], April 14, 1943. In German, with translation.
This prisoner seems happy to tell his family that he weighs 57 kilograms—all of 125 pounds. He seems to be gaining, but one wonders whether the family understood otherwise.
Dachau, the first and longest running Nazi concentration camp in Germany, was a prison work camp more than an extermination camp. Above its gate, in wrought iron, were the chilling words arbeit macht frei, meaning "Work Makes Free." Dachau oused more than 200,000 inmates, some 2/3 of them religious and political opponents of the Third Reich and 1/3 Jews, from more than 30 countries. The camp had its gas showers for extermination, but most of the prisoners who were cremated in its ovens died of disease, malnutrition, and suicide. Dachau was also the site of various cruel medical experiments that left their human victims dead, disfigured, or permanently disabled. Large numbers of weaker prisoners died from a typhus epidemic that spread throughout the camp in early 1945.
Interestingly, there were fewer deaths at Dachau in 1943, when this prisoner wrote this letter, than in any other year during World War II. A total of 1,100 inmates died in 1943, compared to larger numbers in 1940, 1941, 1942, and 1944, and the astounding 15,384 during the five months before the Allies liberated the camp in May 1945.
This prisoner, who was not Jewish, writes to his family in the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. In full: “Dear wife and children! First of all my heart has greetings and my constant remembering you. In the last letter, Nasheka gave me great joy because of her own handwriting and well as with the contents. My friends have also praised how pretty she writes. I’m glad that you can take care of everything on your own and that you are all in good health. Tell your parents and your mother that because of the advanced age they should take good care of their health. The father Vasek is perhaps very ill and the brother Martin is perhaps situated in Brünn. I had a premonition. I hope that they all will get well soon. I am well and I can tell you that I already weigh 57 kilos. Tell Vasek Bohouo is also in good health. My regards to Mrs. Nasalek in Slapanic and the family Hancina Porseonik. I think of all of them and I wish everybody the best. I thank you for the package which I received on April 3rd, which I, according the enclosed list, have received in good order. All the time you send me good things. How much I would like to repay you. I thank Alois for his work in the vineyard, and say hello to all the neighbors. How is the family Partykona? Do they all work in Brünn? Is there any news of the sister Stepanka in Bosena? You ask me what you should send me. I don’t require anything . . . ordinary, only what you can spare and what doesn’t cause you much work or concern. I thank all of you for your attention. The godmother, the parents, and everybody else for their visiting and their concern for our children. / I again send you all my greeting, and all including the larger family, with the wish of a fond reunion. / Your father Vlacek / Registered mailings are forbidden. (Letters—packages and so forth.)”
This letter has markings showing censorship by the central mail office in Dachau and has a city postmark of April 14, 1943. As was typical, the inmate stationery bears printed warnings:
Concentration Camp Dachau 3K
_______________________
The following regulations are to be observed in the correspondence with prisoners.
1.) Every prisoner may receive two letters or two cards a month from his relatives and send to them. The letters to the prisoners must be written very readably and be written in ink and may contain only fifteen lines on a page. Permitted is only one sheet of normal size. Envelopes must not be [security] lined. A letter may contain only five stamps at 12 pf. Everything else is forbidden and will be seized. Postcards have ten lines. Pictures may not be used as postcards.
2.) Money remittances on postal orders are permitted but they must contain exactly the name and first name, the birth date, and the prisoner number.
3.) Newspapers are permitted but may be delivered only through the postal office of the concentration camp Dachau 3K.
4.) Packages may be sent through the mail in limited degree.
5.) Request for the release from prison that are directed to the camp administration are useless.
6.) Permission to talk with the prisoners in the concentration camp are fundamentally not permitted.
All mail that does not conform with these regulations will be destroyed.
The Camp Commander.
This letter is in fine condition. It is stamped with a red German 12 pfennig stamp bearing the likeness of Nazi Führer Adolf Hitler—the kind of stamp the rules allowed relatives to send prisoners. There are normal mailing folds, two small holes in the vertical fold well away from the text, a few stains, and small edge splits at the horizontal folds.
Unframed.
This item is sold.
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