Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- A Note on Permissions
- Foreword to the English-Language Edition
- Foreword
- Introduction
- Part I Camp Life: The Reality 1933–1945
- Karel Parcer, Slovenia, biography
- Feliks Rak, Poland, biography
- Edgar Kupfer-Koberwitz, Germany, biography
- Jura Soyfer, Austria, biography
- Maria Johanna Vaders, The Netherlands, biography
- František Kadlec, Czech Republic, biography
- Mirco Giuseppe Camia, Italy, biography
- Michel Jacques, France, biography
- Eugène Malzac, France, biography
- Henri Pouzol, France, biography
- France Černe, Slovenia, biography
- Father Karl Schmidt, Germany, biography
- László Salamon, Romania (Hungarian mother tongue), biography
- Franc Dermastja-Som, Slovenia, biography
- Part II Searching for the Purpose of Suffering: Despair—Accusation—Hope
- Part III Liberation: Dachau, April 29, 1945
- Part IV The Years after 1945
- Biographies of Other Inmates at Dachau Mentioned in the Anthology
- Glossary
- Arrivals and Deaths in the Concentration Camp at Dachau
- Dachau and Its External Camps
- Bibliography
- Notes on the Translators
- Index of Authors, Their Biographies, and the Poems
Eugène Malzac, France, biography
from Part I - Camp Life: The Reality 1933–1945
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2018
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- A Note on Permissions
- Foreword to the English-Language Edition
- Foreword
- Introduction
- Part I Camp Life: The Reality 1933–1945
- Karel Parcer, Slovenia, biography
- Feliks Rak, Poland, biography
- Edgar Kupfer-Koberwitz, Germany, biography
- Jura Soyfer, Austria, biography
- Maria Johanna Vaders, The Netherlands, biography
- František Kadlec, Czech Republic, biography
- Mirco Giuseppe Camia, Italy, biography
- Michel Jacques, France, biography
- Eugène Malzac, France, biography
- Henri Pouzol, France, biography
- France Černe, Slovenia, biography
- Father Karl Schmidt, Germany, biography
- László Salamon, Romania (Hungarian mother tongue), biography
- Franc Dermastja-Som, Slovenia, biography
- Part II Searching for the Purpose of Suffering: Despair—Accusation—Hope
- Part III Liberation: Dachau, April 29, 1945
- Part IV The Years after 1945
- Biographies of Other Inmates at Dachau Mentioned in the Anthology
- Glossary
- Arrivals and Deaths in the Concentration Camp at Dachau
- Dachau and Its External Camps
- Bibliography
- Notes on the Translators
- Index of Authors, Their Biographies, and the Poems
Summary
Eugène Malzac was born in 1920 in Clermont Ferrand, France. Malzac arrived at Dachau concentration camp on July 5, 1944, on the infamous Train-de-mort (death train), a transport of 2,521 deportees, 984 of whom died en route. Malzac was registered as prisoner number 77,881 and was later liberated from the external camp of Allach. Malzac still visits schools and colleges in France and around the world, talking to pupils about his experiences in the anti-Nazi resistance, his deportation, and his imprisonment in concentration camps.
Les squelettes vivants
Ils vont lentement, les yeux fixes hagards
Trébuchant, voûtés, la tête basse
S'arrêtant ici, là, au hasard
Ce sont les squelettes vivants qui passent
Ils ne ressentent rien, ni le vent, ni le froid
La maladie même semble marquer le pas
Leurs peaux qui collent à l'os, leurs peaux qui se craquèlent
Et font de ces enfants des vieux que démantèlent
Les coups, les privations, les brimades aussi
Des bourreaux implacables, les sinistres nazis
La mort est là qui rôde, redoutable hideuse
Elle prend tout son temps, l'implacable faucheuse
Personne ne fera le travail à sa place
Ce sont les squelettes vivants qui passent.
Living Skeletons
They move slowly, their wild eyes staring
They are stumbling, bent over, their heads lowered
stopping here, there, aimlessly.
They are living skeletons passing by
They feel nothing, not the wind not the cold
Even their illness marks time
Their torn skin clinging to their bones
So that children become old people
They are falling apart
Absorbing the blows, the hardship, the taunts also
Of pitiless executioners, the sinister Nazis
Death is prowling around them, fearsome, hideous,
Taking his time, an implacable reaper
No one else will do his work,
They are living skeletons passing by.
—Translated by David Cooke- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- My Shadow in DachauPoems by Victims and Survivors of the Concentration Camp, pp. 73 - 75Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2014