Lest We Forget: The Horrors of Nazi Concentration Camps Revealed for All Time in the Most Terrible Photographs Ever Published - A rare photo album from the death camps, published by The Daily Mail. Includes excerpts from Daily Mail articles published in April 1945. London, 1945 - First edition. Hardcover with the original rare dust jacket.
In the Album, over 60 large black and white photographs across full pages, some across two full pages, of very harsh scenes from Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, Nordhausen, Dachau and others. Most were taken by Allied Forces Army Signal Corps Photo units and L.A.P.I. - Minister de linformation and S.C.A photo agencies during the liberation of the camps, showing emaciated prisoners alongside disturbing images of the deceased in the camps with signs of abuse on their bodies, and their burial by German civilians who were forced to bury them and witness what men from their nation had done. As mentioned, the copy comes with the original dust jacket featuring a large photo of those perished at Dachau.
This important photo book was published in limited circulation due to paper shortages at the end of the war. Its purpose was to document the crimes of the Nazis in the death camps. In the introduction, George Murray writes: "This is an unpleasant book and the decision to publish it was made after much thought. But without it the archive of our time would be incomplete... This is a documentation of the German concentration camps in photographs and official documents, and first-hand reports from Daily Mail correspondents who witnessed the scenes they write about". He also writes: "It would be foolish to close our eyes to the grim and dreadful reality detailed in these pages, or to forget that it is the duty of decent men to avenge such crimes against the human body and spirit. Here you will find appalling facts, and even more appalling pictures. We may shudder but we dare not to go away...". It is also written in the introduction that the purpose of the book, in addition to reminding the British people of the threat they must not forget, was to re-educate the Germans themselves.
In one of the introductory chapters, titled: "The Lowest Depth Reached by Humanity", the editor quotes selected passages from the official report of the parliamentary delegation that visited Buchenwald on April 21, 1945. It also features an illuminating letter by Mrs. Mavis Tate - the only woman who was part of the parliamentary delegation in the camp at the time of its liberation, describing how they found the prisoners who remained in the camp: "No pictures can give any remote conception of Buchenwald... Shadow men... The impression gained of the prisoners was that their senses died. They knew they were free, they were treated, they could give accounts of the horrors they had endured, but they didn't really care anymore, they were shadows whose hope, humor, love, ambition, feeling had gone...". It also includes excerpts from factual reports by Daily Mail special correspondents on what they saw when arriving at the death camps, including detailed descriptions of the structure of the camp, the condition of the prisoners found there, and a map of the death camps.
16 text pages, followed by 64 photo plates. 29 cm. Hardcover with the rare original dust jacket. Very good condition.
