Het Bloed van Buchenwald - The Blood of Buchenwald by ALFONS RYSERHOVE, Gadton Scherrens Publishing, The Netherlands [1945] - First edition. Rare initial testimonies of the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the Buchenwald death camp by prisoners who survived in the camp, accompanied by harsh photographs of prisoners who survived alongside bodies in the camp, as found by the Allies at the time of the liberation of the camp. Dutch.
A rare booklet that was published at the end of the war in order to expose the crimes of the Nazis and to present to the world the atrocities committed by them. The testimonies that appear in the booklet are generally short, since they were hastily taken at the end of the war even before all the atrocities that took place in the camp became known from a large number of surviving prisoners in the following years. On the cover is a photograph of a prisoner who survived and the inscription: "Released! This poor man escaped from hell alive, but take a good look at his physical condition. His compatriots...". The introduction begins with a detailed explanation of how the Buchenwald death camp operated and the methods of torture and murder perpetrated by the Nazis there, as well as the inconceivable dimensions of an industry of death that had never occurred before in human history: "Dachau, Breendonk, Belsen, Majdanek, Mauthausen!... These names taught us what monstrous limits men could reach, and the Nazi animals did reach..."
The booklet presents testimonies of Buchenwald prisoners that were documented immediately after the war, with each prisoner telling their own stories and describing terrible events that took place in the camp. For example, a prisoner named Karl Spifan who was captured by the Gestapo on June 30, 1944 in Antwerp, describes: "When we arrived at the camp, we were greeted by large wolf dogs with exposed fangs specially trained to bite prisoners in certain places... The thermometer shows 25 degrees below zero. A group of Jews were brought into the camp. They are forced to undress and are pushed naked... After a few hours, some of the victims are already lying on the frozen ground, dead or unconscious... Anyone who remains alive after half an hour will have their brains crushed... This is how the Nazis sought to save European culture..."
Another inmate named Brett van Hurric describes how an SS soldier was granted four days off after fatally shooting an inmate who bent down to lift his hat. He also describes how the Nazis forced prisoners to climb a tall tree and saw off the branch on which they were sitting, and their fall to death. He also describes the daily mortality of the Jewish children who arrived at the camp. A prisoner named Lucien Wahrhel describes how the Nazis forced four Jews who chained them to each other to walk around a tree for a whole day while the Nazi Soldiers whipped them with a whip, by evening all four were already dead. There are also harsh descriptions by prisoners' about the terrible experiments the Nazis performed on the prisoners' bodies. There are also harsh testimonies about the cruelty and sadistic behavior of Ilse Koch, the wife of camp commander Karl Koch, who used the prisoners' skins to cover books and various objects, and more.
Towards the end of the booklet, the reaction of journalists exposed to the atrocities of Buchenwald at the end of the war is described: "I am a journalist" reported an American war correspondent, "but with all my goodwill I cannot describe to you what I saw in Buchenwald. I'm sorry, but there are things that can't be described... The Buchenwald camp alone, which is just one of many, recorded 48,000 executions in five years...", and more.
The booklet is accompanied by harsh photographs from Buchenwald, which were taken by the Allied forces and first published here. Among them are various photographs of bodies of prisoners who were killed by the Nazis while the American forces from the 3rd Armored Division approached the camp, and they were scattered almost everywhere in the camp, a shocking photograph of bodies found in Nordhausen camp, mass graves in Nordhausen camp, German civilians who were forced by the Allies to visit the crematoriums of Buchenwald after the war in order to confront them with the crimes of their people, emaciated prisoners who survived lying next to the bodies of their comrades who did not survive... and more.
Extremely rare. Only three copies appear in the world library catalog world cat.
31 p. 20 cm. Very good condition.
