Mauthausen: The History of a Death Camp – Mauthausen: The History of the Death Camp, by Evelyn Le Chêne, Methuen & Co Ltd., London, 1971 – First edition. Presentation copy, inscribed and signed by the author.
A comprehensive factual documentation of the Mauthausen concentration camp, based on numerous sources, including evidence presented at the international war crimes trials in Nuremberg, survivor testimonies, German documents, records and statistics kept by prisoners in the camp, and letters provided by family members and friends of the victims. It also includes detailed documentation of the classification of prisoners in the camp: political prisoners from across Europe, prisoners of war, as well as Jews and prisoners from other groups persecuted by the Nazi regime. The book describes the structure of the camp, its system of subcamps, the living conditions of the prisoners, and the high mortality rates. The author, born in 1936, married Pierre Le Chêne in 1965 – one of the few survivors from a group of British special agents who were imprisoned in Mauthausen. She researched the death camps for years after the war. Her book is considered one of the leading and most comprehensive studies on the Mauthausen camp, produced at a time when extensive information about the camp during the years of the Second World War had already been collected.
The Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria is considered one of the most brutal camps established by the Nazi regime. It was founded in 1938 near granite quarries and operated continuously until 1945; the prisoners were forced to perform deadly forced labor intended to break their bodies and spirits. Many of them were compelled to carry heavy stones up the notorious quarry steps, under beatings, hunger, and extreme exhaustion. It was one of the most cruel sites of torture during the Nazi regime. Mauthausen was classified by the SS as a camp of especially severe punishment, where the mortality rates were among the highest in the Nazi camp system. The camp was a significant part of the plan in the “Final Solution” of the Jewish problem, and was intended, among other things, to provide an endless supply of cheap labor to serve the Nazi machinery. Thousands of prisoners died there from hunger, disease, and systematic abuse. For many of the prisoners brought there from across Europe, the camp symbolized a place where life became a desperate daily struggle for survival against a system of calculated cruelty. With the entry of units of the American Third Army into the camp at the end of the war, the horrific atrocities committed there over the years were revealed to the world.
296 pages. A copy dedicated to the Hannah Senesh Library in 2011. Hardcover with the original dust jacket. Very good condition.
