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

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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.

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.

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.