Bidspirit auction | A British White Paper –

A British White Paper – a report of testimonies on Nazi crimes in Germany. Toronto, 1939 - A British White Paper (Germany No. 2, 1939) PAPERS CONCERNING THE TREATMENT OF GERMAN NATIONALS IN GERMANY 1938-1939 - Published by Musson Book Company. Toronto, 1939. An early report containing severe and detailed testimonies of Nazi abuses in German cities and in concentration camps during the 1930s. Submitted by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to Parliament by command of His Majesty. The accounts presented constitute an early exposure of Nazi crimes and reveal Nazi brutality even before the outbreak of World War II. After the British were accused by Nazi media and press of atrocities in South Africa, His Majesty’s Government saw fit, in response, to publish to the public the grave testimonies it possessed regarding Nazi crimes against civilians, primarily Jews, within Germany. The report exposes what took place in the first concentration camps established in Germany as early as 1933 against opponents of the Nazi regime, and the daily abuses endured there by prisoners of various nationalities, especially Jews. “The British Government declares that the decision to publish the severe documents classified in this report was taken after Britain reached the conclusion that there was not even the slightest chance of reaching any understanding with the Government of Germany, ” it is stated in the introduction. It further states that the poisonous propaganda of Nazi Germany and its abuse of minorities within its territory must be brought to the attention of world public opinion, and to make it known that this is the darkest period in human history (these words were written in 1939, before the systematic mass killings in the death camps). The testimonies revealed in this report were brought to public knowledge for the first time and had not previously been published in the press or in any other medium. Among the cases revealed in the report: detailed descriptions of what took place in the Buchenwald concentration camp, from testimonies of prisoners who were held there, including the testimony of a Jewish detainee who was imprisoned in the camp for six weeks, describing the forced labor in which he worked 16 hours a day throughout the entire week, the prohibition on drinking water during all those hours even in the hottest weather, and the carrying of bricks of excessive weight that no person could bear, and how the Nazi officers mocked the Jews, saying that Pharaoh had not worked them hard enough in Egypt and that now they were completing the task... A prisoner caught drinking water during the day was immediately flogged with 25 lashes... One tap served 480 men for washing for only a quarter of an hour... Not a single Jewish prisoner was ever released from the camp... The filth and mud in the camp, the harsh conditions in the barracks, the thin clothing given to Jews in the severe cold (without undergarments), Jews who chose to take their own lives, medical experiments carried out on the prisoners’ bodies, the camp regulation that a prisoner must not be released with marks of beatings on his body, and how the Nazis ensured that such marks remained on all prisoners as a pretext not to release them, and more. Likewise described are the first arrests in the streets of Berlin of innocent Jewish passersby without any reason, arbitrary break-ins by SS soldiers into Jewish homes, mass arrests, and arbitrary torture following the murder of General von Fritsch, and more. 40 pages. Good condition.