Planet Dora: A Memoir Of The Holocaust And The Birth Of The Space Age [Hardcover]

Yves Beon (Author), Michael J. Neufeld (Author), EDITOR * (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 27, 1997

An extraordinary memoir by a survivor of the Nazi camps, Yves Béon, Planet Dora is a recollection of life and death in a concentration camp like no other. Dora was a cavernous underground factory cut out of solid rock, where life was like a nightmarish scene from Dante: thousands of prisoners beaten, starved, killed, and living underground for weeks at a time. The purpose of all this brutality was to build the world’s first operational rockets: the V-1 and V-2 missiles, Hitler’s vengeance weapons.Some of Germany’s most brilliant engineers were involved with production at Dora, including Werner von Braun, who after the war went on to become the father of the American space program. It was his Saturn V rocket, designed with the help of his wartime comrades, that put the first man on the moon; while the Saturn V project was headed by the same man who had been the director of slave labor in Dora. In fact, some of the very rockets built in Dora were packed up after the war and shipped to New Mexico to serve as the seeds of the U.S. space program. In a very real sense, the greatest technological achievement of the twentieth century had its origins in the enslavement and murder of thousands of innocent people, the down payment of a Faustian bargain that still tarnishes the foundation of our reach for the stars.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (March 27, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813332729
• ISBN-13: 978-0813332727
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,539,423 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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9 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Dora and the V-2 Rocket Program, December 15, 2002

By 

Paul Eckler (princeton jct, nj United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Planet Dora: A Memoir Of The Holocaust And The Birth Of The Space Age (Hardcover)

This is the story of the Dora Concentration camp where Nazi Germany's V-1 and V-2 rockets and jet engines for Junkers were manufactured by slave labor in huge tunnels cut into the Harz Mountains near Nordhausen in the central German state of Thuringia. The book tells the story of the slave laborers inside the mountain and includes numerous stories from survivor interviews. Many died of starvation, exposure, overwork, exhaustion, disease, beatings, torture, hangings, and minimal health care. Dora had a population of about 15,000, and its own crematorium. Prisoners who died were replaced, but no-one ever left except as a corpse (until the end of the war). Conditions in the tunnels were bad: damp, cold, and dusty with poor ventilation. Prisoners included were not only Jews, but also political prisoners and people captured throughout the German occupied lands: Russians, Poles, Slavs, French, Italians, and Germans. Groups were segregated and given different jobs. Jews and Russians usually got the worst jobs.

Michael J. Neufeld, curator of the National Air and Space Museum at The Smithsonian, provides a detailed introduction. Hitler adopted the V-1/V-2 rocketry program as super-weapons intended to shift the balance after the German war offensive ground to a standstill in Russia. He planned to use them as terror weapons to weaken the will of the British to continue their war effort.

Experimental work was done at Peenemuende on the Baltic Coast, and initially manufacture was set up at that site too. However, the British were able to detect that work via aerial photography (according to the movie, "Operation Crossbow"). In spite of the high risks, the RAF succeeded in destroying the plant by bombing. The timing was fortunate, because Neufeld feels V-2 attacks on massed Allied forces prior to the Normandy Invasion could have had greater impact. As it was, the Allies were able to shoot down the rather slow V-1s. By the time V-2s were available in number, the Allied forces had landed in France and spread out from their beachheads. That made them a less vulnerable target.

The book disagrees strongly with several aspects of the movie "Operation Crossbow." Only production, not research was done in the mountain complex. Conditions for inmates were far worse than portrayed in the movie. Neufeld points out the slave labor/concentration camp aspect of the story was largely ignored in publications prior to 1980, but was recognized in more recent works.

Neufeld provides an excellent bibliography. No index.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Family, April 25, 2011

By 

The Old Man (Los Gatos, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Planet Dora: A Memoir Of The Holocaust And The Birth Of The Space Age (Paperback)

Yves Beon is my grandmother's nephew (not clear if this is a second cousin). I read both of his Dora-related books in the original French and did not realize that they had ever been translated. I just happened to search for La Planete Dora and came across the translation. The additional title line "A memoir of the Holocaust and the birth of the Space Age" was a surprise to me. I recall that Goddard and others had something to do with rockets before WWII. Anyway my ancestors were on both sides of the European theater and so WWII has always held a special interest to me. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the translation. I will enquire as to the health of Yves.

0 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Michael Neufeld is NOT the author of this book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, January 4, 2009

By 

L. Hunt (Key West, FL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Planet Dora: A Memoir Of The Holocaust And The Birth Of The Space Age (Hardcover)

Amazon needs to change its information: Michael Neufeld is NOT the author of this Holocaust memoir! Yves Beon's book was originally published in French. It was originally translated by an American journalist in 1985. Just because Neufeld wrote an overly long prologue doesn't mean he is the author of this book and should not be credited as such.

Sadly, Yves, who is elderly and ill, cannot defend his work. And where is the publisher in this???

This is disgusting.