The slaughter of war, especially after 1941, was leaving the country starved of fighting/working age men, with the result that the daily administration at the (men's) concentration camps was increasingly delegated to carefully selected inmates. Matejka had evidently succeeded in having himself listed among the trustworthy prisoners, and following his return to Dachau he was assigned to work as a library assistant, and then to take charge of the camp book-binding workshop. This provided him with an opportunity to start producing "Pick Books" ("Pickbüchern") with articles cut out of newspapers pasted on their pages which were distributed among fellow prisoners to try and keep them informed. The articles selected included Hitler speeches and army reports, along with features on the arts, literature, music and philosophy, all neatly cut out and grouped according to subject matter.