Issue of the Belgian Weekly LE SOIR Illustré, Dated May 3, 1945, Documenting for the First Time the Horrific Scenes Witnessed by Allied Forces Upon the Liberation of Buchenwald Concentration Camp. At the center of the issue are rare historic photographs of the first surviving prisoners from the camp. During the Nazi occupation (1940–1944), Le Soir was controlled by the Germans and published under strict propaganda oversight. After the liberation, the newspaper was restored and regained its independent editorial stance. This issue is among the first published following the newspaper’s return to its original ownership.
The cover of the issue features a photograph documenting the ‘historic meeting between the Russian and American armies.’ In the center pages, a detailed article and numerous photographs taken by press photographer Roger Crouquet depict the first survivors of Buchenwald meeting the Allied soldiers. The survivors, dressed in tattered prisoner uniforms, are seen sitting in the camp courtyard with expressions of mixed joy and sorrow. Additionally, the spread includes graphic images of the bodies of the deceased. The photographs are captioned: Below an image of an elderly prisoner, the caption reads: “How infinite sorrow is in these eyes.” Another photograph of a survivor is labeled: “They all have these gaunt faces and that hard flame in their eyes.” Another caption states: “Still struggling to manage a first smile.” A chilling description accompanies a photograph of the gallows: “Here before us is the gallows… the ropes that tightened around thousands of necks still hang there… To the left of the gallows, a pile of bones… The critically ill are being evacuated by Red Cross ambulances for medical treatment.”
Press photographer Roger Crouquet provides here one of the first-ever written accounts of the atrocities at Buchenwald. He and his team searched the various rooms of the camp, and he writes: “We visited the places of hell, the terrible basements where innocent victims were killed and murdered, in the name of a regime of power that has now fallen. In the name of a man who might be dead today… The ropes that tightened around thousands of necks still hang there. The ladder, worn down by the feet that clung to it in their final moments… There is a pile of human bones. Here was discarded the ash of all those who were burned. To the left of the gallows, on a table, stood several potted wallflowers. Behind this table, the executioner watched… while the poor victim, shaken in his last moments, hung at the end of the rope, and the guard drank. “Let us enter the crematorium. It consists of two series of three ovens. In each, we can still see pieces of half-burned corpses. Next to it is the torture chamber. It is a low, roughly square room. The walls are lined with hooks. The dying were hung there… The bench is still on the ground. It is stained with blood. “Let us go to the laboratory, set up in the basement. Doctors came to inject specially selected prisoners with diseases, so they could later observe the progression of the illness at their leisure. In this room, bodies with ‘interesting’ tattoos were also preserved. The skins were tanned and then used for book covers or lampshades. There was a case where a camp commander once saw an unusual tattoo on a prisoner’s back; a few days later, that prisoner was dead. His body was sent to the laboratory, and his bones and skin were used to make a lampshade by the wife of this man—whose name we know—Dr. Koch, who rode her horse across the quarry where prisoners labored. She tried to knock them down, whipping anyone within her reach. “Let us return to the light and leave this horrific room, where the bodies of the martyrs served as playthings for the masters of the time. In the courtyard, around ten corpses lie stacked on top of each other, ready for disposal. This is the daily quota, as the camp guards say… Hundreds of thousands of Russians, Poles, Czechs, French, and Belgians were brutally murdered. Every liberated camp echoes the same name—Buchenwald. “In the park surrounding the barracks stood an oak tree where Goethe once came to meditate. This oak was destroyed during the bombing of a nearby factory. For months, the Germans hanged hundreds of prisoners from its branches. If Goethe were alive today, he would not have had the chance to meditate under his beloved oak tree. The Nazis surely would have hanged him there.”
The remaining pages of the issue include: An article on Princess Elizabeth of England at age 18. Allied prisoners who were held captive by the Germans and later liberated. A detailed feature on the Allied Air Force.
The ruined face of Nazi Germany – photographs of the rubble and devastation left in German cities after Allied bombings, with the caption:
“This is what they know how to do now—raise white flags the moment Allied soldiers appear.”
Le Soir Illustré was a weekly Belgian magazine in French, founded as an illustrated supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Soir in 1928. It focused on current events, culture, fashion, cinema, history, and international affairs, with rich visual content. During the German occupation (1940–1944), Le Soir Illustré, like its parent newspaper Le Soir, fell under German control and was published under Nazi propaganda oversight. After the liberation of Belgium, the magazine resumed its independent editorial stance.
Complete issue. 39 cm. Good condition.
