MAUTHAUSEN Plus jamais ca! – MAUTHAUSEN – Never again! An important and early folder holding 25 real photo postcards of harsh scenes from the Mauthausen concentration camp during its Nazi control, and the week the camp was liberated. On the back of each postcard a description in French and German. Paris, 1945. Complete folder. rare.
The folder contains photographs, some taken by the Nazis themselves while they were in control of the camp, and some by the Allies in the week the camp was liberated. In the photos: Horrifying photograph of POWs from the Soviet Union who were forced to stand in naked rows in the freezing cold of the morning procession, harsh photo of a handcuffed prisoner being abused, Prisoners lying on the wooden bunks in exhaustion on the day of their release, along with photographs of the bodies of those who did not survive, Prisoners who had their limbs amputated marching to freedom with prosthetic legs, crematoria, camp gate with SS emblem – eagle and swastika, guard towers, hanging poles used for killing and public punishment of prisoners, An underground facility that was used for forced labor in the camp, Heinrich Himmler and his men In the camp (at the end of the war, Himmler directly ordered the extermination of all the prisoners in Gozen I and Gozen II – an order that was not carried out in practice due to the chaos of the end of the war), and more. Most of the photographs in the folder are hard to view.
On the cover of the folder is a picture of a prisoner in an inmate’s uniform against a backdrop of smoke rising from the camp, by Bernard Albert. On the inside front cover is an illustration of a prisoner in uniform with a chart describing the different parts of the clothing. Introduction in French about the structure of the camp, how it was run and the number of people killed according to country of origin.
The Mauthausen concentration camp [Konzentrationslager Mauthausen] in Upper Austria was mainly used for forced labor. It was established in 1938 next to the city of Mauthausen, and was initially used for the incarceration of opponents of Nazism. Beginning in 1941, its purpose changed and the Nazis started to imprison many Jews there, mainly from communities in Czechoslovakia and Holland. 38,000 Jews were murdered in the camp, most died of forced labor. The camp was liberated in May of 1945 and was one of the last liberated by the US army.
Complete Folder. 16×10 cm. Postcards: 10×14 cm. Stains on the cover. Good condition.