"Dachau" – The First Official Report Exposing the Horrors of the Camp, Published by the U.S. Seventh Army Team ...

"No words or photographs can fully convey the impact of these shocking scenes, yet this report presents key facts and images to emphasize the nature of the crimes the SS committed thousands of times each day—to remind us of the terrible capabilities of certain classes of men, and to strengthen our resolve that they and their works shall vanish from the earth… At Dachau, the prisoners’ sole purpose was to survive under the most primitive and brutal conditions, constantly threatening both their sanity and physical existence…" – From the introduction by Colonel William W. Quinn.

The report describes in detail the operations at the Dachau camp from its establishment by the Nazis in 1933, the worsening of the prisoners’ conditions with the outbreak of the Second World War, the internal organization of the camp, the division of prisoners according to their different nationalities, and the horrific atrocities committed there. Among other things, it includes the first account received from members of the U.S. Seventh Army, the force that liberated the camp, before whose eyes appeared the horrifying sight of approximately 13,000 corpses of prisoners who had died during the last three months of the camp’s existence from starvation or typhus. Many of the bodies bore severe signs of abuse and were scattered everywhere. The liberators were also confronted with the shocking sight of dozens of corpses scattered throughout the railway cars, the final transport of prisoners sent to the camp - and more.

In its second part, the report presents harrowing testimonies from prisoners, detailing in full the atrocities they endured in the camp. Many passages are extremely difficult to read, as it is almost unimaginable that such horrors could have been committed by human beings. Prisoners were forced to stand naked for hours during morning roll calls in the freezing cold, and to witness the executions of their fellow inmates as “punishments” for minor acts of “insubordination.” The abuse took a wide variety of forms - from beatings with fists and clubs, which sometimes led to death, to being submerged in ice-cold baths, injections of toxic substances, starvation, and more. Psychological torture was also employed to break the inmates’ spirits and prevent any initiative of escape attempts from the camp. Also described here in detail are the medical experiments carried out on the bodies of prisoners, in sections that are exceedingly difficult to read. The report is accompanied by shocking photographs of prisoners as found by the Allied forces, an aerial photograph of the camp, surviving inmates on the day of liberation, and more.

67 [1] pages. Light stains on the cover. Good condition.