Seven harsh photos from the death camps, taken by the Allied forces at the end of World War II

Horrific photographs of the victims’ corpses in the camps, some showing severe signs of abuse. Depicted: bare-chested prisoners who had just been liberated in the Buchenwald camp; burial of victims’ bodies in Bergen-Belsen; a U.S. Army doctor providing medical treatment to an extremely emaciated survivor in Penig camp; liberated Jews, shockingly thin, in Buchenwald; a pile of human skeletons in Buchenwald; prisoners supporting their exhausted companion in Vaihingen (Germany); and inmates who perished shortly before liberation, lying lifeless on the ground in Dachau.

These liberation photos, taken by the U.S. Army Signal Corps, played a major role in shaping the visual collective memory of the Holocaust. The order to send military photography units into the camps and to capture the scenes of horror served two primary purposes intended by the Allied forces: first, to reveal the crimes of the Nazi regime to the public in order to justify the total mobilization and the immense sacrifices of the war; and second—no less important—to collect as much visual evidence as possible for the prosecution of Nazi war criminals in the trials held after the war. This visual documentation was indeed used by the prosecution in court and served as a critical factor in the final convictions. After the trials, the Allies distributed these photographs among the German population so they would know the atrocities committed in their name under Nazi ideology—and to instill the message: Never Again!

Uniform size: 23×17 cm. Very good condition.