A collection of photographs from the Mauthausen concentration camp - The month the camp was liberated - May 1945

A collection of photographs from the Mauthausen concentration camp - The month the camp was liberated - May 1945

40 photographs from Mauthausen concentration camp  [Konzentrationslager Mauthausen], most of which were taken during the month the camp was liberated by American forces, May 1945.

Among the photos that appear are: prisoners [Muslemans] standing next to the electrified barbed-wire fence of the camp, bodies of the deads, the crematorium, the gas chambers, the detention facilities, the experiment desk, the camp from aerial view, the underground facilities of the camp, A photograph of Franz Ziereis - the camp commandant throughout his years of operation. (During the American forces' takeover of the camp, Ziereis fled with his wife on May 3, 1945. He tried to hide in his hunting lodge on the Pyhrn mountain in Upper Austria, where he was discovered and arrested by an American army unit, shot three times in the stomach While trying to escape and was brought to an American military hospital established in the former concentration camp of Gusen, where he died Shortly afterwards, his body was hanged on the fence of the camp by one of the former prisoners), and more.

The photographs before us from this camp are of particular importance because the Germans destroyed many of the camp documents and evidence, often giving the new prisoners who had come to the camp numbers of those who had already died in order to disrupt evidence. And the well-known documentation of what is happening in the camp is usually circumstantial.

The Mauthausen concentration camp in Upper Austria was used mainly for forced labor. It was established in 1938 near the town of Mauthausen, and at its beginning mainly imprisoned opponents of Nazism. Beginning in 1941, the trend changed and the Nazis began to imprison many Jews, mainly from the Czech and Dutch communities. 38,000 Jews were murdered in the camp, most of whom died from forced labor. The camp was liberated in May 1945 and was one of the last to be liberated by the United States Army. Inmates from the camp liquidated about 30 remaining SS men; Lynch in a similar number of SS men was made in Gusen II. 

Photographs: 13x9 cm. The source of the photographs distributed by the US Army to the news agencies .On the back of the photographs was attached , a stencil label containing technical and administrative details, and a description of the event documented. Some of the photographs are difficult to watch. Very fine condition.