Eric Chaim Kline, Bookseller

Eric Chaim Kline, Bookseller
Item #34282 They Murdered Twenty-Eight American Flyers. Education Department of the Ministry of National Defence.
They Murdered Twenty-Eight American Flyers
They Murdered Twenty-Eight American Flyers

They Murdered Twenty-Eight American Flyers

Prague: Education Department of the Ministry of National Defence, 1945. First edition. Softcover. Octavo. 22, [2]pp. Original photo-illustrated wrappers with red lettering on front cover. Frontispiece. Scarce booklet on the gruesome event that took place in the Czech town of Slavicin. There, an air battle took place on August 29th 1944. Two days after, the bodies of twenty eight Americans who were killed during the battle were dumped into a mass grave by German soldiers. A wooden marker at the grave read: "28 American Flyers, Died August 29, 1944, buried August 31, 1944." German orders strictly forbade anyone from bringing flowers to the grave. After the war, a group of people from the Slavicin area tried to uncover the details of the battle and to learn the names of the men who had been buried in their town. However, the political climate changed quickly after the war, and as a result the search for information was essentially halted. Nevertheless, the Czech people did not forget about their American Liberators. Every year since the battle, on the last Sunday in August, a special mass has been held at the church in Slavicin in memory of their fallen heroes. Slowly and patiently, the Czechs continued to collect information and pieced together details related to the battle and the men who fought it. This work is illustrated with 9 b/w photographic reproductions. Moderate rubbing and slight creasing along edges of wrappers. Upper corner bumped, thus slightly affecting pages throughout. Wrappers and interior in overall good to good+ condition. g. Item #34282

Price: $150.00