Prison on Wheels

Prison on Wheels is a remarkable diary kept by a young Hungarian woman, Eva Dános, during sixteen horror-filled days and nights of deportation by the Nazis in 1945. It is an eyewitness report of a 700-kilometer rail journey from Ravensbrück, north of Berlin, to Burgau, near Munich, one of the countless such operations that took place within Nazi Germany’s vast network of labor- and concentration camps. What makes this account of particular interest is the fact that the author had been a member of a small, underground group in Budapest led by Gitta Mallasz (Talking with Angels), and her fellow-prisoners included some of these same comrades. Their humanity helped to sustain them.