Underground Auschwitz
MARCHING WITHOUT KNOWING is a non-fiction book and draws on the true account of a British prisoner of war, beginning with his journey to a coalmine at the Sosnowitz works, Auschwitz III, in September 1944, to work alongside forced and slave labourers of different nationalities and ‘categories’, and concluding with his liberation in Bavaria at the end of April 1945 after a foot-march covering nearly 800 miles and in atrocious circumstances and conditions. The book pieces together in an original way the events, conditions and decision-making processes leading up to, and during, the evacuations from Upper Silesia by way of documentary evidence.
Using previously unpublished and unknown materials and facts of international and historical significance, the book contextualizes the survivor’s own fate, and the fate of thousands of prisoners of war who were trapped in, and force-marched from German-occupied Poland as Europe began to be divided into two halves during the winter of 1944/1945.
The historical material is approached from three perspectives and in three stylistic parts: Part One is a poetic reflection on the events transmitted and discovered across generations (entitled ‘Knowing’); Part Two is a dramatic chronological narration in Five Acts using authentic communications and oral accounts from the time; Part Three is the transcript of over thirty years ago of the survivor’s own narration of his experiences. Thus, the skeleton of war – its bones and joints are clearly visible and starkly contrast with the flesh and blood of the individual lives at the heart of the account. The parts are united by the theme of ‘who knew what when’ and ‘who did not know what when’ on personal, governmental and military levels. Will we ever know, is the question the readers are left with, and one that has a relevant contemporary echo.
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[Knowing] is extremely well written.
Juliet Annan, Literary Director at Penguin
I have read your piece [Knowing] with great interest for it really is an unknown topic... If the book is written in an accessible and gripping way, it should be suitable for any big publishing company.
Bernd Rheinberg, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Berlin
I have checked the website and found your really excellent piece under campaigns and news. You write so very well and clearly.
Tessa Ransford, President of Scottish PEN, re. J.McNally’s ‘Letter from Berlin’ on historical and contemporary matters
Which publishers are you in contact with? Tell them that experts in Germany can’t wait to buy your book!
Günther Siedbürger, teacher and expert on European forced labour, Göttingen
