As ever, there is much to learn from first-hand accounts of Hitler’s reign. Here, in all its horror, is the story of Mihran Mavian who, as a teenager, survived the genocide of the Armenians and buried his mother in the sands of the Syrian desert.
In the years that followed, Mavian made his way across North Africa and into France, where he learnt to be a shoemaker, a trade that helped him to survive Hitler’s genocide of the communists.
Shoemaker and unionist
Mavian’s story starts with his work as a shoemaker, a trade unionist, and an active communist. He was stunned by the capitulation to the Nazis of the French Government, many of whom supported their arrival and collaborated with them. The defeated army was sent to work for the Nazi war effort.
“Some 2 million French soldiers found themselves in Germany as prisoners of war, amongst them more than 3,000 Armenians.” (p.5)
We read how the Armenian community and the communist party contributed to the French Resistance in Paris. The party organisation was used for communication and recruitment of snipers. The Vichy administration produced the infamous “Red Poster” featuring members of the Manouchian group as prominent communists and sought to discredit them.
But this move rebounded as Parisians lay flowers where they were posted to honour the group. Today, streets are still named after the group. The author says little of their actions: his focus is on the inhumanity of the fascist creed.
Captivity
Mavian was arrested in February 1944, and the narrative takes a dark turn as he describes his interrogation, the places where he was held, the transit between camps, those he met and befriended, the unbearable cruelty and suffering he experienced and witnessed, and the merciless killing of so many.
Following his arrest, he was taken to the Gestapo HQ for interrogation and held at Fresnes Prison. He tells of his time there and sharing a cell with Farange, a jeweller who hated communists. However, Farange was literally a captive audience and in time they were able to exchange their points of view in a cordial way while others listened to their debate.
Frequently beaten until he was unable to walk, Mavian found the debate with Farange helped his recovery. When Farange was released, he visited Mavian’s wife to let her know where he was being held and became lifetime friend of the family.
Mavian spent time in the notorious Cell 66, a 1m cube, where on the wall he saw the signatures of the Manouchian group, alongside which had been written:
“Winter outside, winter inside, winter in my heart.” (p.18)
Condemned to death in March 1944, Mavian was moved out of Paris to Compiègne Camp, a former French prison housing prisoners of war and, separately, political prisoners. Here, again, he would befriend those who at first despised communists but were astonished by how clearly Mavian would express himself. Friendships were short lived as many were taken to the death camps. News filtered through of Soviet advances into Romania, and food parcels arrived from his family, which he shared with his friends.
Auschwitz
Towards the end of April 1944, along with 1,800 others, Mavian was marched through the village of Compiègne and loaded onto the train for Auschwitz, a nightmare journey of three days with no food or water.
Arriving at Auschwitz on 1 May, first everything was taken from them, then their details recorded. Naked, they were shaved head to foot, then taken to the showers. During this last ordeal and old priest was asked by one of his students what he would do if he survived:
“I am going to preach, make known the reality of Nazis and fascists as an affront to the Christian world. I want to see a liberated France free from the bourgeoisie.” (p.45)
He would leave Auschwitz without knowing that the showers were also gas chambers. The borders of the camp couldn’t be seen as they seemingly stretched to infinity. The hell that was Auschwitz was plain to see as Soviet prisoners were beaten to death in front of them, and the nearby chimneys poured black smoke.
After a month, Mavian and his cohort were moved out. Later they would discover why the 1,800 had not been killed:
“The resistance had killed the interior minister of the Vichy Government… [he] had given the Nazis the names of the 1,800 on their blacklist…The British heard about this and threatened the Nazis that if they burned any of them they would do the same to the Germans who fell into their hands.” (p.44)
They arrived at Buchenwald, where “the facilities seemed like Eden”. Whilst tortured by interminable roll calls in freezing conditions, he was able to find some fellow Armenians and could speak his native language again. After a short respite, they were loaded onto trucks for the journey to Flossenbürg for what are the darkest chapters of this account.
Flossenbürg
Arriving at Flossenbürg in June 1944, he found it remote, surrounded by mountains and trees. Built in 1933 by 5,000 communists – of which, less than 50 survived – Flossenbürg had stone towers and was used to exploit slave labour drawn from those the Nazis considered undesirable.
Mavian explains that everyone had a number, a letter to represent a country (F for France), and a symbol to show their “crime”.
The list of symbols below is derived from p.54 demonstrates the starkness and breadth of Nazi hatred:
| Symbol | Meaning |
| Green Triangle | Criminal |
| Red Triangle | Political Prisoner |
| Pink Triangle | Homosexual |
| Purple Triangle | Religious |
| Black Triangle | Others |
| Yellow Star | Jew |
| Yellow Band | Gypsy |
| Blue Circle | German Communist |
The author notes that of 5 million German communists only 48 survived (p.65), a staggering statistic, seemingly ignored across Europe.
Forced labour
The Kapos were prisoners with green triangles used by the Nazis to supervise forced labour and carry out administrative tasks such as apportioning food. The Kapos’ cruelty drives the darkness of his account.
The Kapo in charge of the quarry personally killed 3,000. Working in the quarry was hell; every shift had to carry the dead back for roll call. Mavian lists the ways that thousands were killed by the Kapos: through brutality, lack of food, punishing work, roll calls, the SS, wolfhounds, poison, infection, and contagious disease. All this made forced labour a death sentence (p.68-69).
The advancing Russians, and the second front led by the US and Britain, disrupted supplies. After a spell being worked almost to death in the quarry, Mavian, with the help of friends, moved to the shoe repair shop. Yet conditions in the camp worsened, with:
“Death at every moment of every step.” p.85
For defeating the Germans, the Soviet prisoners were treated ever more harshly. SS Officers shot 200 Soviet officers. Each victim entered a bunker one at time to be executed, but no sound escaped.
Additional prisoners from Buchenwold were marched 75km to be housed at the Flossenbürg camp, taking the total number to over 30,000, ten times its capacity.
On 13 April, as the Americans approached, the SS departed, but when they changed direction, the SS returned. A week later they were ordered to leave the camp and were marched along mountain paths. Any who fell were shot. Over 10,000 died on that path.
Liberation and reckoning
Finally, the US tanks appeared and Mavian was liberated near the village of Samsert, Bavaria, weighing just 40kgs. He returned two years later to Flossenbürg to remember lost friends, and gave evidence against his captors at war trials held in Dachau.
All-in-all, this translation offers a broader understanding of the scope and scale of the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis against the communists that is rarely acknowledged in national commemorations of the Holocaust.
To the reader in the 21st century, the detailed endnotes written by Mike Jempson provide essential explanations and context of an era that few will be familiar with today. Truly a valuable, if distressing, read.
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