Description

[Metlika, Slovenia]: Propagandni oddelek Glavnega štaba NOV in POS Slovenije [Propaganda Department of the Headquarters of the Slovenian National Liberation Army and Partisan Divisions of Slovenia], July 1944.

This rare work features two chilling accounts of the Auschwitz concentration camp as related by two anonymous female survivors to the professional writer Ladislav Kiauta.  Described in horrific detail are beatings and murders, as well as many specifics, such as the names of prison guards.  While the accounts are anonymous the level of detail is such they could only have been related by those who were direct eyewitnesses to the atrocities described.

The present work was issued by an underground Partisan press in Slovenia to inform people of the true evil of the Third Reich.  It was published in 1944 while Auschwitz was still in operation, although it must be noted that survivor’s accounts of the camp were published as early as the winter of 1940-1.

The work was written by Ladislav Kiauta (1914-90), a professional Communist writer and publisher who first opened his own press in 1932.  During the war he joined the Partisans where he put his skills to good use.  Following the war, he fell afoul of Marshal Tito whereupon he did a spell in the notorious prison of ‘Naked Island’.

The present work is very rare. We could find one institutional example on Worldcat (The British Library).

References: OCLC 1144805397. Bibliografija, no. 5553.