7 harsh photographs from the Nazi death camps at the time of their liberation by the Allied forces. Taken by Allied photography agencies at the end of the war, each stamped on the back with ink seals from agencies such as Ministère de l’Information / L.A.P.I. and others. Germany, 1945.
Horrific photographs depict the bodies of victims in the camps, some bearing severe signs of abuse. Included are: A Russian prisoner at Neunburg camp, hands tied behind his back, murdered by the Germans and hastily buried as American forces approached Essen; Skeletal human remains next to the fence in Dachau; Prisoners executed by the Germans near Dachau towards the end of the war; Skeletal remains of prisoners loaded onto a truck at Buchenwald; The bodies of victims in Dachau, with an Allied soldier looking on in shock; Corpses of prisoners at Nordhausen, lying on the ground before burial; Allied soldiers stand next to the freight elevator that transported the bodies of executed prisoners to the ground floor, where the crematorium furnaces were located.
The liberation photographs taken by the U.S. Army photography unit played a crucial role in shaping the visual collective memory of the Holocaust. The order to send the photography unit into the camps and document the atrocities had two primary objectives: First, to expose the crimes of the Nazi regime to justify the total mobilization and sacrifices of the war; second, to collect as much evidence as possible for the prosecution of Nazi war criminals in post-war trials. These visual records were indeed used in court and played a decisive role in the conviction of war criminals. Following the trials, the Allies distributed these photographs to the German population to make them aware of the horrors perpetrated in their name and to reinforce the message: Never Again!
Uniform size: 23×17 cm. Very good condition.
