The journal La Chaîne – Paris, April–May 1946 issue. At the top of the issue appears the heading: “Le devoir envers les absents” – “The duty toward the absent”, and beneath it: “Les déportés survivants sont les maillons de cette chaîne” – “The surviving deportees are the links in this chain”. Editor: Pierre Perrin Odéon. An important issue devoted entirely to a list of hundreds of victims who perished in the death camps, including each individual’s prisoner number, as well as a list of patients hospitalized in Block 2 of the Mauthausen infirmary as of May 7, 1945 (the day before Germany’s surrender). Extremely rare.
At the opening of the issue, beneath the heading: “The magnitude of the crime…”, there appears a list of French nationals who died in Bergen-Belsen from April 13, 1945, including names, prisoner numbers, and dates of death (List 122). Alongside it is a list of French prisoners (List 121) who died in Herzogen since January 11, 1944. To the right appears a report on those murdered in the camps of Dachau, Mauthausen, and Gardelegen.
Further on is a detailed list of hundreds of prisoners still alive in Stralsund prison, and of those who died in the Gross-Rosen camp, again including prisoner numbers, country of origin, and dates of death. On the reverse of the issue appears a nominal list of French, Belgian, Dutch, and Luxembourgish patients hospitalized in Block 2 of the Mauthausen camp hospital as of May 7, 1945. There is also an article titled Sandbostel, describing the conditions in the camp and the state of the prisoners after liberation, and addressing the chances of deportees being found alive after the war. Among other items appears a heartbreaking letter by Colonel Albert Labbe, who searched for his son after the war: “I am sorry to write you such terrible news, but I feel it is my duty to tell you, for I am firmly convinced that it is the truth, the cruel truth. I have had to examine hundreds of cases similar to yours, and I have concluded, I believe that your son died of typhus in Sandbostel, and that there is no hope of ever seeing him again…” , and more.
The central purpose of the issue was documentation, the publication of the names of the victims and survivors, the collection of testimonies, and commemoration, alongside a demand for justice and for the investigation of Nazi crimes. This is an important primary document from 1946, shortly after the end of the war, when initial data was collected through which survivors’ families learned for the first time of the fate of their loved ones.
Extremely rare. In the WorldCat global library catalog the journal is listed, it is noted that it is not held in any library worldwide.
4 pages. 50 cm. Complete issue. Folding marks. Light tears restored with tape, with minor damage to a few letters of text. Good condition.
