Feliks Rak was born in 1903 in Borowiecz, Poland. Rak was arrested by the Gestapo in the spring of 1940 and initially imprisoned in Kielce. In July 1940 he was deported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, then was moved to Dachau on September 5 of the same year, where he was registered as prisoner number 18,425. He was still interned in Dachau at its liberation in April 1945. Rak was a leading member of a secret organization in the camp. Many of the poems that he wrote during his incarceration in the concentration camps were read there at secret gatherings. Following liberation he compiled his memoirs and published them together with other material. Feliks Rak died in 1992.

Dachau wśród słońca

Poznałem piekło Dachau wśród słońca

Obóz, baraki stojące tu w rząd.

Płot murowany, rów, zasieki z drutu,

Jest w nim podłączony zabójczy prąd.

I krematorium tu co dzień i w nocy

Dymi bez przerwy i zatruwa życie.

Słychać też strzały, gdzieś w pobliżu, w lesie

rozstrzeliwują więźniów już o świcie.

Co dzień nas budzą nie poranne zorze,

Lecz judaszowska ręka esesmana.

Koncentracyjny obóz tu poznałem.

Do dziś w historii to rzecz nieznana.

Dachau 1941

Dachau beneath the Sun

Beneath the sun I discovered Dachau—

the camp with its barracks laid out in rows,

its brick walls, ditch, and barbed wire

plugged in to a deadly current.

All day and night smoke

from the crematorium poisons lives;

while, close by, you hear the prisoners

being shot at dawn in the forest.