Lot 873

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Description:

MATHAUSEN COMMANDANT''S CONFESSION AND CAMP PHOTOGRAPHS OBTAINED FROM AN AMERICAN CORPSMAN
"I HAD TO KILL ALL THE PRISONERS..." A startling and historic collection of photogaphs and documents obtained from the estate of U.S. Army medical corpsman William Battaglia, 131st Field Evacuation Hospital. On May 9, 1945, the 131st Evacuation Hospital was ordered to set up a hospital in the area of KZ-Mauthausen in order to take care of recently-liberated Polish and Russian prisoners there, with additional plans made to establish a ward in another sector of the camp. Establishing themselves at KZ-Mauthausen and KZ-Gusen less than a week after the liberation of the camps, the medics and doctors had the patients transferred to the newly-established hospital and a clean-up was commenced. On May 3rd, commandant FRANZ ZIEREIS fled the camp but was captured on the 23rd. He was shot three times in the stomach while trying to escape and was then brought to the 131st Evacuation Hospital at Gusen I where he died after an eight-hour interrogation by a former inmate.

This lot includes a contemporary typed carbon copy of Zereis'' deathbed "confession" in two parts, 15pp. total, 4to., obtained by Corpsman Battaglia. The incredible content details Ziereis actions during his six year administration, describing events and identifying his associates at the camp. In very small part: "...I had to kill all the prisoners owing to a statement of Obnergruppenfuhrer Dr. KALTENBRUNNER. The prisoners had to be put in a tunnel...then the hole had to be blown up with dynamite...a gas room was built...similar to the bath room in here...a special motor car was running...in which prisoners had been gassed also...WASICKI gave this car...done on pressure of...Dr. KRESSBACH...orders came from HIMMLER or from HEYDRICH or from Gruppenfuhrer MULLER or even from Dr. KALTENBRUNNER..." Ziereis denies any knowledghe of teh whereabouts of SS Dr. KEISEWETTER whom he explains sprayer 700 naked prisoners in freezing weather, or the locations of otehr named who performed vivisections and other murders. He adds: "...I myself have beaten them merely for sadism...gassed prisoners have been reported as normal dead..." The list of atrocities Ziereis carefully describes is lengthy and appalling: murder of crematoria workers, murder of Jewish doctors and hospital staff, murder of Jews while en route to the camps, murder of American members of a peace delegation, corruption of guards and officers, whorehouses at the camps, chasing prisoners into the electrified wires, murder of Czechs in the camps to avenge the assassination of Heydrich, "euthanasia" actions, gruesome torture methods, similar actions at Auschwitz and elsewhere, and much more unbelievable content. Also present are 24 original photographs, almost all 3 1/2" x 4 1/2" and captioned on the verso. Comprised of grisly images of the dead and the nearly dead at the camp, piles of bodies and rows of corpses lined up in mass graves, gallows and wall used by the camp firing squad, the "Steps of Death" down which prisoners were thrown, the Allied cemetary, and perhaps most fittingly, the naked body of Commandant Franz Ziereis suspended upon the camp''s electric fence, "Heil Hitler" painted upon his back and two swastikas adorning his buttocks. Finally, there is an excellent colored pencil portrait of Corpsman Battaglia, 8" x 10 1/2", executed by liberated Polish prisoner Janusz Rybaltowski. This historic grouping is in overall fine condition. Copies of Ziereis'' statement, the portrait, and other original photographs were donated to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, presumably by Battaglia, in 1999.

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September 14, 2017 11:00 AM EDT
Chesapeake City, MD, US

Alexander Historical Auctions LLC

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