[Photo Albums]: Three Albums Depicting Post War Visits to Concentration Camps

Three albums. All albums are oblong small quartos, two measuring 11" x 7" and one measuring 9.5" x 6". Two albums string-tied red leather over stiff paper boards; the later album is string-tied blue leather over stiff paper boards. Contains 66 sepia-toned or black and white gelatin silver photographs measuring 5" x 7", with captions in French and German. The two 1950s albums are about near fine with some edgewear, the 1970s album is good only with soiling and spotting on the boards. All photographs near fine. A collection of three photo albums documenting a Frenchman’s pilgrimage to the German concentration camps of Mauthausen in 1955, Dachau in 1956, and Buchenwald in1970. The first album is from an August 1955 trip to Mauthausen which contains 20 original photographs, one per leaf, and begins with a handwritten title page which reads, "Konzentrationlager Mauthausen, Aout 1955." The first three images depict the village of Mauthausen, the location of the camp, and the quarries. The following photographs show the entrance of the camp; the roll-call square; watch towers and walls topped with electrified wire; the S.S. quarters; the cells (outside and inside views); barracks and electrified fence; inside of a barrack; three views of the Crematorium including outside, the chimney, and an open oven; a dissection table; the inside of the gas chamber; the camp and the gardens; the French memorial commemorating French victims of Kauthausen; and a memorial in honor of Lieutenant General Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev. The last photograph shows inmates tearing down the giant Nazi Eagle topping the main entrance of the camp, a scene which occurred on May 5, 1945 when the camp was liberated. The second album is from a trip to Dachau in August of 1956 and contains 18 photographs, one per leaf, and begins with a handwritten title page which reads, "Konzentrationlager Dachau, Müchen, Aout 1956." This time, the unidentified Frenchman visited Dachau, the first of the Nazi concentration camps opened in Germany, and intended to hold political prisoners. The camp opened on March 22, 1933, less than two months after Hitler’s rise to power. The first photograph shows a map locating all the Nazi death camps. It is followed by other prints depicting the Deportation Memorial; disinfection chambers; both crematoriums’ chimneys and ovens; the gas chamber chimney; an inside view of the gas chamber; a receptacle for human ashes; the gallows stand; two mass graves; the execution range with blood ditch; the ash grave; and the electrified barb wire fence surrounding the camp. The final album is from a visit to Buchenwald around 1970 containing 28 photographs and a 32-page official booklet of the camp in French. The non-captioned photos depict the entrance; the roll-call square; various memorials; mass graves; a chariot used for transporting dead bodies; the infirmary; an inside view of a cell; crematorium ovens; the Ernst Thalmann memorial; wooden and rubber sticks used to beat up the prisoners; a pile of victims’ hair and shoes; shrunken heads and Zyklon-B poison gas pellets; a maquette of the camp; an aerial view of Buchenwald; Fritz Cremer’s sculpture of the liberated prisoners with the Tower of Freedom in the background; the Street of Nations; and the Ash Field. On the fourth leaf is pasted a hand-drawn plan of the camp’s horse stable. On the last page is mounted the printed lyrics of Fritz Beda-Loehner’s "Buchenwaldlied." Beda-Loehner was a German musician who was arrested and murdered in Buchenwald. Pasted on the inside of the back cover is the printed German text of Buchenwald Survivors’ Oath read out on April 19, 1945: "We will take up the fight until the last culprit stands before the judges of the people. Our watchword is the destruction of Nazism from its roots. Our goal is to build a new world of peace and freedom." An arresting collection of post-World War II pilgrimage to concentration camps with photography that depicts the solemnity and horro.…