Primary sources are documents, books, articles, and other materials written or collected at the time of an event, or by people who have first-hand knowledge of the event. Diaries, memoirs, court documents, autobiographies, and other "I was there" materials fall into this category.
Newspaper and news magazine accounts contemporaneous to an event may also be considered primary sources for some purposes.
Letulle, Claude J. Nightmare Memoir: Four Years as a Prisoner of the Nazis
Marks, Jane. The Hidden Children: The Secret Survivors of the Holocaust
Office of U. S. Chief Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality. Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression
Tessler, Rudolph. Letter to My Children: From Romania to America Via Auschwitz
Stojka, Karl. The Story of Karl Stojka: A Childhood in Birkenau: Exhibition at the Embassy of Austria, April 30 to May 29, 1992; Catalogue
The Liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps 1945: Eyewitness Accounts of the Liberators
Trials of War Criminals Before Nuernberg Military Tribunals, Under Control Council Law no. 10, Nuernberg, October 1946-April 1949
Trials of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal
Nightmare Memoir by 
The Hidden Children by
"They hid wherever they could for as long as it took the Allies to win the war - Jewish children, frightened, alone, often separated from their families. For months, and even years, they lived in constant danger of discovery, in tiny huts, in wretched sewers, in closets, in barns, in the woods - any place that might provide shelter. They had to behave as adults, fabricating new identities at a young age, sacrificing their childhoods to save their lives. They couldn't cry, it was perilous to be sick. They were innocent victims in a world gone mad." "For years, many secret survivors have suppressed these painful memories. They have kept their stories to themselves. Now, in The Hidden Children, twenty-three adult survivors share their moving wartime experiences - often for the first time." "There is Kristine, who, with her family, hid in the sewers of Lvov for fourteen months; Rosa, who hid in an impoverished one-room farmhouse with three others, sleeping on a clay pallet behind a stove; Renee, who posed as a Catholic and was kept in a convent by nuns who knew her secret; and Richard, who, with his family, lived in a closet for thirteen months." "The stories of danger and sacrifice go on..." "Yet the hiding and the devastation of the war are only part of the story. After the war ended, lives had to be rebuilt again. That was when the reality of survival began to sink in - when the guilt of surviving and the difficulty of living proved nearly impossible for so many. Symbolic of the strength of the human spirit and the will to go on, these personal stories of belief and determination give a voice, at last, to the forgotten. Inspiring and life-affirming, The Hidden Children is an unparalleled document of witness, discovery, and the miracle of human courage."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Letter to My Children by
"Sixty-seven members of my family--my mother, her father, my three sisters, three of my brothers, aunts, uncles, and cousins--were murdered at Auschwitz." As Rudolph Tessler's mother stepped from the train in Auschwitz, shortly before she was sent to the gas chamber, she heard "Hello, Esther." In a polite tone, a young German SS officer greeted her as he would any old friend. His family lived down the road from the Tessler family in Viseu, their hometown in northern Romania. They, like the rest of the town, admired Esther for her wonderful cooking, particularly the delicious cakes she brought them each Christmas. Now he ushered her and six of her children to their deaths. Throughout Letter to My Children, Tessler offers vivid glimpses of the senselessness that surrounded him during World War II. Of the thousands packed in trains and transported from Viseu to Auschwitz, just a small group survived to see liberation. Among the survivors were Tessler, his father, and two of his brothers. This is the amazing story of their experiences as Hasidic Jews caught in the chaos and terror of the Holocaust. Tessler's upbringing had emphasized community and family devotion--traits not forgotten in the concentration camps, where he and his family members often rescued one another from certain death. Few fathers and sons survived the concentration camps together. In spite of the odds, Tessler and his brother Buroch managed to stick together, sharing their father's labor assignments to protect him from death, preserving not only their family bond but also their spirituality. Tessler's father, always a source of strength and guidance to his family, provided counsel to many prisoners in the camp and eventually assumed the role of rabbi. Despite an environment in which their captors tried to reduce them to animals, Tessler's remaining family and seven other Jews from Viseu made a special effort to observe their faith. Bending rules in ways that risked their lives, they worked together to smuggle wheat, grind it into flour, and bake matzos to distribute for Passover. The group also secretly gathered to pray on the eve of Rosh Hashanah. These religious observances offered some comfort in the camp. In addition to vividly portraying the daily struggles of camp life, Letter to My Children follows Tessler beyond liberation, recounting his days as a displaced person struggling for a new life in the midst of the devastation of postwar Europe, as an American immigrant striving to rebuild his family and succeed in business, and as a philanthropist for education and health care. Recalling the age-old way of life in Viseu that was erased by the Holocaust, this inspiring story conveys the hope, determination, and perseverance that made Tessler a survivor.
Accused war criminals being flown to Poland.
Photo: SYddeutscher Verlag Bilderdienst. From http://www.holocaustchronicle.org/StaticPages/641.html