Between the Covers

Hardcover. Oblong octavo. Measuring approximately 11.75" x 8.25". String-tied red cloth over paper boards. Contains 96 gelatin silver photographs, several with detailed captions on the verso, mounted (and easily removable, with care) with clear corners onto gray cardstock leaves. Although some images are as late as 1948, most are from 1944-5. An additional 19 family photographs and two newspaper clippings are placed at the end of the volume indicate Scottish lineage, and include two large press photographs. War photographs measure approximately 2.75" x 2.5". Private and press photographs range in size from smallest 4.75" x 3.5" to largest 8.25" x 6.25". Wear to front boards, a few photographs creased, otherwise very good.

Second World War album of snapshot photographs taken by an Allied soldier who participated in the capture of the German camp features striking views from the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp situated in the Vosges Mountains in Alsace in France. Natzweiler-Struthof was the only purpose-built concentration camp constructed by the Germans on French soil (although there were some temporary camps to accommodate battlefield prisoners). Originally conceived of as a labor camp manned by politically undesirable German citizens, it was expanded to include a crematory for the mass extermination of Jews, Gypsies, and captured resistance fighters. The writer Boris Pahor wrote his novel *Necropolis* based on his experiences there. The Germans had largely evacuated the camp by the time it was captured (over 2000 died when the remaining prisoners were marched to Dachau) although a small staff of SS soldiers remained.

The soldier who took these photographs is not identified, however a newspaper clipping together with two press photographs made in Edinburgh suggest that the soldier was from Haddington, about 20 miles east of Edinburgh, Scotland. It seems he was posted in Germany during the period of Allied occupation, deduced by a photograph showing the Karlsruhe Bridge over the Rhine river, captioned with the date of 4 May 1948. A substantial number of photographs reveal peripheral evidence of the atrocities which took place at this particularly remote and notorious location, the captions adding details gleaned while bearing witness to the years and final breaths lost by so many.

Although the photos are relatively small, among other things they illustrate are multiple urns on a shelf, captioned: "used to send ashes of political persons back to Germany - cost for earthenware urn 60 marks, metal urns 90 marks." A crematorium: "furnace used to burn bodies in gasoline, fire used to heat boiler for hot showers in next room." A surgical table upon which medical experiments and dissections were performed on "dead and live patients." A table of "human scalps - after the laundry treatment scalps were pulled off victims before body was burned." Prisoners (presumably German soldiers) tied to one another with ropes at the wrists and marching on a road, captioned noting the white stripes on their pant legs. Prisoners pulling a heavy cart uphill: "SS prisoners pulling cart up steep mountain road. SS prisoners are serving 20 years in camp. Nazis used to make Allied prisoners do the same thing." From the entrance of the camp: "...the clock in the watch tower is run by hand by an S.S. prisoner..." Another of a long range view of the camp: "... scaffold is in front where Germans used to hang Allied prisoners found escaping. The drop is only 2 feet when the trap door is open - not enough to break a man's neck - the victim was suffocated to death while the other prisoners lined up to watch."

*New York Times* reporter Milton Bracker toured the camp on December 5, 1944, about two weeks after the camp was liberated by the French. In his report he mentioned the dissection table and the small storage room of burial urns. Three days later the camp was inspected by American officers who also reported the disinfection unit, a large pile of human hair, a gas chamber, and an incinerator designed for burning human bodies.

Among the other pictures are soldiers posing at a road sign for Offenburg, where there was a subcamp of Natzweiler-Struthof, photographs of a German cemetery, downed German aircraft, large fixed German artillery, and railroad tracks that lead to the camp. There are also images of devastated streets and cities in ruins, as well as the immediate celebration of Allied soldiers following the campaign that brought the liberation of the camp. Several show jubilant and proud soldiers donning or displaying large Nazi flags; others are captioned "VE Day." Others are taken in Heidelberg (one of the few German cities that emerged from the War relatively unscathed), where a soldier stands in front of a building with a banner sign for the Military Government of the U.S.A.

Images that capture some of the essence of the dark times and horrific acts that took place during the Second World War. An affecting and immediate set of scenes taken at a pivotal period in the War.

Item #405071