Description :
"Of the group of forty hostages sent by the Brussels Gestapo to the Mauthausen death camp, four, including me, survived to the moment of liberation. It was on 6 June 1945 that I handed over my powers to Colonel Joyce and began my return to Belgium. I was reunited with my parents, wife and child on 9 June 1945. I didn't return empty-handed. As well as my convict uniform, I took with me this handwritten notebook in which I had collected my poems, expressions of my emotions, my fears and my revolts.
If I resume the publication of these texts, it is firstly to show how much poetry can help man in the worst conditions of despair and survival. And secondly, to help the young people of today, whose age we were at the time, to understand the horror of dictatorship and racism.
May these resurrected poems awaken in the hearts of these young people, in this new millennium, the vigilance and will to fight every day for freedom and human dignity."
Arthur Haulot, extract from the introduction

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