L'EXPOSITION crimes hitleriens - GRAND PALAIS EXPOSITION - Exhibition Catalog "Crimes of Hitler" - Grand Palais Catalogue - from the exhibition held at the "Grand Palais" in Paris between June 10th and July 31, 1945. First edition. A shocking photograph booklet of Nazi atrocities photographed by the Nazis themselves during the war, and also photographs from the camps photographed by the Allies at the war's end. French.
The booklet contains shocking photographs some of which were found after the war in Nazi soldiers' possessions and some photographed by the Allies. The photographs document images of the Nazi party's rise to power in the 1930s, the 1933 book burning of Jewish books across Nazi Germany, abuse of Jews in ghettos, camp prisoners, deportation of French Jews to camps, concentration camps in France, corpses of victims, corpses showing signs of severe torture in Struthof and other camps, and more. On the last page letters left by murdered prisoners written in their final moments are presented, expressing their feelings, with short quotes from the letters: "My friends know I remained faithful to my life's ideal, my country knows I go to die so that France may live", and also: "You understand, it's very possible I could have died in war or even in last night's bombing. So I do not regret giving meaning to this end..." and more.
The "Crimes Hitlériens: Grand Palais" exhibition was held in Paris between June 10th and July 31, 1945 under the sponsorship of the French government, presenting the public with the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the death camps during the war. Among the curators was Lord Wright, chairman of the UN War Crimes Commission. The building was divided into 29 rooms in the "Grand Palais", each focused on a different aspect of Nazi atrocities. Photographs, films, documents and objects were displayed throughout, all intended to shock and horrify viewers. One room was dedicated to the fate of the Jews. It presented a chronology of Jewish confinement in the French camps of Pithiviers, Beuane-la-Rolande and Drancy, in the occupied zone, and in Gurs in southwestern France under Vichy rule. It was noted that deportations from Drancy to Germany numbered 62,608. Over a million people seeing the horrors of the Holocaust for the first time visited the exhibition.
In the editor's introduction to the booklet he emphasizes the importance of exposing Nazi crimes so that if there are ever hints of a similar occurrence in history, the whole world will know the catastrophe the world could reach if not stopped in time. "In the terrible trial civilization has brought against Hitler and his deeds, we need the painful testimony of these saints... thus we will help people remain vigilant and one day identify the first hint of tyranny, whatever form it may take..."
[30] p. 28 cm. Very good condition.
