The Priest Barracks: Dachau 1938-1945

Front Cover
Ignatius Press, May 3, 2017 - History - 280 pages

At the Nazi concentration camp Dachau, three barracks out of thirty were occupied by clergy from 1938 to 1945. The overwhelming majority of the 2,720 men imprisoned in these barracks were Catholics—2,579 priests, monks, and seminarians from all over Europe. More than a third of the prisoners in the "priest block" died there.

The story of these men, which has been submerged in the overall history of the concentration camps, is told in this riveting historical account. Both tragedies and magnificent gestures are chronicled here--from the terrifying forced march in 1942 to the heroic voluntary confinement of those dying of typhoid to the moving clandestine ordination of a young German deacon by a French bishop. Besides recounting moving episodes, the book sheds new light on Hitler's system of concentration camps and the intrinsic anti-Christian animus of Nazism.

 

Contents

Map of the Dachau Concentration Camp
9
The Precursors
17
Centralization
30
The Largest Diocese in Europe
45
Organization of the Camp
56
Zugänge
68
Blocks and Commandos
76
Jobs
88
Hunger
103
Dying in Dachau
113
A Chapel in Dachau
173
The Eucharist
181
Sacramental Life
192
Conclusion
247
Acknowledgments
265
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2017)

Guillaume Zeller is a French journalist. He is the former editor in chief of  I-Télé, a national news television channel in France. His other two historical books are Un prêtre à la guerre about a French paratrooper chaplain and Oran, 5 juillet 1962 about the Algerian War.

Bibliographic information