Auction 112 Eretz Israel and Zionism, Anti-semitism, World War II and refugees, Postcards and Photographs, Posters, Maps, Judaica, Seforim, Letters from Rabbis and Rebbes
Jan 21, 2019
Israel
 3 Shatner Center 1st Floor Givat Shaul Jerusalem
המכירה מתקיימת עם כרוז וללא קהל
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LOT 63:

Collection of Photographs Taken by the Allied Forces on the Day the Camps were Liberated - Survivors aside those ...

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Collection of Photographs Taken by the Allied Forces on the Day the Camps were Liberated - Survivors aside those Killed in the Death Camps

15 large photographs taken by the Allied forces on the day the camps were liberated 1944-1945. The photographs were distributed after the Holocaust in educational frameworks in Germany as part of the "re-education" of the German population in the spirit of the values ​​of democracy and peace. All are stamped on the reverse with the ink stamp of the American Photography Agency.

Photographs of the Nordhausen, Vaihigen, Belsen, Dachau, Ohrdurf and Buschenwald and other camps. In the photographs: Allied forces looking at the hanging ropes, American soldiers assisting Jewish survivors, German civilians forced to help bury corpses, extremely thin prisoners rescued on the verge of death, harsh photographs of scorched corpses, and more. Some of the photographs are difficult to view.

The Western democracies, especially the United States and Britain, were eager to present the crimes of the Nazi regime to their own public in order to justify the many victims and the mass recruitment. As a result of this, their governments made considerable efforts to document, as much as possible, the process of the camps' liberation and what was found in them. To this end, resources were allocated, including much photographic and film equipment [many photographs from liberation day appeared in the film Death Stations produced for the United States Office of War Information for the re-education of the German population, as well as in Night Will Fall directed by André Singer]. Civilian photographers and film crews were brought in an organized way to the camps. Aside from media needs, the product of their work was included by the prosecution for the trials planned for the war criminals. Later on, they were also used for re-education of the conquered German population in the spirit of democratic values. Either way, these photographs, although difficult to view, are visual documentation of the first order to the atrocities perpetrated by the Germans under the auspices of the Führer and the Reich in the Nazi death camps.

The photographs are identically sized: 17x23 cm. Very fine condition.


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