Nacht Und Nebel By Floris B. Bakels Based on the diary entries that he wrote at the time, this is the true story of one man's arrest in Occupied Holland under the 'Night and Fog' decree, and his experiences of life in a Nazi concentration camp. ISBN-13: 9780718828813 Specifications: 222x142mm, 235pp, Hardback Price: £19.99 • US$42.50 Publication: July 1993 Order this Title Now

About this Book

"A powerful and harrowing book, as well as an inspiring one," writes the Bishop of Oxford. "I am happy to champion publication." Harrowing is indeed the word for what Floris Bakels experienced at the hands of the Nazis. Arrested in Holland, he became one of the forgotten Dutchman of the war, consigned to ‘night and mist’ status, his whereabouts concealed from all who had known him. It is salutary to read of this precursor in Nazi Europe to the ‘disappeared ones’ of modern times in other countries.

Bakels was not only one of the survivors, he was one of the few who managed to scratch out a diary on concealed scraps, and to retrieve it after the War. This account is based on those writings, and reveals not only a man at his very lowest - subject to beatings, degradation and disease and witness to brutal killings - but also one who kept faith with God and with memory of his wife.

Concentrating on those two images kept him sane in mad, hell-like conditions. His wife became angelic in his mind: God was not only a subject for reverence and contemplation but for discussion in secret meetings with believers and sceptics alike. A hidden Bible helped keep his Christianity alive even in the darkest of times.

The Holocaust is a subject of much discussion nowadays. Floris Bakels shows it as it truly was, in all the horror of the worst concentration camps, in which he was incarcerated, yet with a strong spirit even in the midst of despair, thanks to his firm Christian impulse.

The book has sold very extensively in Dutch and German editions, both in hardcover and paperback. Herman Friedhoff, who has written a successful book on his own involvement in war resistance and conflict, has made the first English translation. It will attract much attention, to a time when concentration needs to be focused on the resurgence of fascist tendencies in much of the world.

Reviews and Comments

"The book tells a truly horrifying story of man's inhumanity to man. But it is good that it has been published, as a record of what brave men and women suffered for their opposition to an evil regime ... It was in the camps that he found his personal faith in Jesus, and the story of its growth is what makes this diary so fascinating ... The fact that Bakels came to his deeper faith through his suffering is surely significant ... Bakels must have had an iron constitution and an indomitable determination to survive. The latter he attributed to his faith."
Walter Barker, Third Way

About the Author

Floris Bertold Bakels was born in the Hague in 1915. He studied law at Leiden University, and practised as a solicitor in Rotterdam until 1942. Arrested by the German occupying forces in April of that year, he survived some of the worst Nazi concentration camps, ending the War in Dachau. After the war he became involved in publishing, and was also involved in setting up the Anne Frank Foundation. He is now retired.