BALACHOWSKY: Russian by birth, French by naturalization.
M. DUBOST: When were you naturalized?
BALACHOWSKY: 1932.
M. DUBOST: Were you deported on 16 January 1944 after being arrested on 2 July 1943, and were you 6 months in prison first at Fresnes, then at Compiègne? Were you then transferred to the Dora Camp?
BALACHOWSKY: That is correct.
M. DUBOST: Can you tell us rapidly what you know about the Dora Camp?
BALACHOWSKY: The Dora Camp is situated 5 kilometers north of the town of Nordhausen, in southern Germany. This camp was considered by the Germans as a secret detachment, a Geheimkommando, which prisoners who were kept there could never leave.
This secret detachment had as its task the manufacture of V-1’s and V-2’s—the “Vergeltungswaffen” (reprisal weapons)—the aerial torpedoes which the Germans launched on England. That is why Dora was a secret detachment. The camp was divided into two parts: one outer part contained one-third of the total number of persons in the camp, and the remaining two-thirds were concentrated in the underground factory. Dora, consequently, was an underground factory for the manufacture of V-1’s and V-2’s. I arrived at Dora on 10 February 1944, coming from Buchenwald.
M. DUBOST: Please speak more slowly. You arrived at Dora from Buchenwald on . . .?
BALACHOWSKY: On 10 February 1944, that is at a time when life in the Dora Camp was particularly hard.