Description:

BUCHENWALD SURVIVORS MAKE THEIR INITIAL REPORT ON ATROCITIES
Very important original mimeographed report, 5pp. 4to., [Buchenwald, ca. mid-April, 1945], a history of the atrocities committed by the SS at Buchenwald as reported by representatives of the prisoners, WALTER BARTELS (German), JOSEF FRANK (Czechs), MARCEL PAUL (French) and IVAN SMIRNOV (Russian). The document is clearly war-date as it mentions 'commanders still in [Allied] unoccupied territory' and cites the number of dead at the camp up to April 1, 1945 (the camp was liberated by Americans on April 11). The document is titled: 'Report on the Concentration Camp at Buchenwald', and it is grim. It reads, in small part: '...The first prisoners came by various transports from the concentration camps of Sachsenburg and Lichtenburg. The very first prisoners were political and criminal ones...During this time, until approximately March 1935, many prisoners found their death by fusillade on the occasion of fictitious attempts to escape...The large transports of May and June 1938 of so-called 'work-shy' Germans and Jews caused an increase in the death rate, which, at the end of the war, amounted to 10% of the total effective death rate...During the war in September 1939, 2,500 Jews came from Vienna, of which 31 were killed out of old-age asylums. They were squatted in tents in an open place and were put under the command of the 35-year-old Bank and Hinkel...At the dissolution of this 'Sundarlager' on the 12th of February 1940, 2,000 survivors out of a total of 5,300 Poles...On the occasion of the attempt on the life of Hitler in...Munich, 21 Jews were selected and killed. Consequently, the Jews were put under arrest in the dark and without food for three days...In August 1940, 1,100 Poles were also brought into this special camp. On the final day, 11 more were shot in the quarry. After nine months, only 300 were left. As a reprisal for eventual occurrences, Poles were frequently selected and hanged in public throughout the camp, on one occasion 25 together...In the summer of 1941, the camp doctor Eisele murdered 100 prisoners of tuberculosis by injecting sodium. He also carried out vivisections of the prisoners...In July 1941, by report of the Political Department...two transports of political and original prisoners were killed by experiment with poisonous gas at Sonnenstein near Pirna...Since December 1941, internees were continuously used for experiments in the laboratory for spotted fever, in barrack 46. The persons responsible were Dr. Ding (now Schuler) and the site officer Dr. Hovan...' Much more awful content. Toned at folds with some negligible loss at center of a few pages which caused a previous owner to laminate the pages in plastic, else very good. Certainly one of the first eyewitness reports from a liberated concentration camp.

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June 26, 2025 10:00 AM EDT
Elkton, MD, US

Alexander Historical Auctions LLC

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