Photograph Album – Irgun and the Lehi Exiles in Africa – Handmade Leather and Wooden Binding, with a Carved Map of ...

Photograph Album – Irgun and the Lehi Exiles in Africa – Handmade Leather and Wooden Binding, with a Carved Map of North Africa
An album, bound in leather and set with handmade carved wooden plaques, containing approx. 45 photographs documenting the lives of the Irgun and the Lehi exiles in the detention camps in Africa. The Sembel detention camp (Eritrea), Gilgil (Kenya) and elsewhere, [1946-1948].
The photographs, captioned below by hand, are a rare documentation of life in the camps. They depict: a group raising the Zionist Flag above a Hebrew sign reading "The Exiles of Zion in Asmara"); Colonel Patrick Rice, commander of the Gilgil camp, standing during the singing of "HaTikvah"; the editorial staff of the newspaper "BeGalut Kenya – Shmuel Tamir, Aryeh Gur, Baruch Vinitzky and Mordechai Nedivi; rabbi of the Gilgil camp, Chaim David Kahana, sitting in a Sukkah between the portraits of Rabbi Kook and Maimonides; the actors of the camp theater, Bamatenu (Our Stage), in the plays "The Waves of the Sea", "It's a Lie!", "The Deceitful Advocate"; many photographs of sports tournaments (including photographs of the football teams "The Elders of Zion" and "The Haifa Athletes"); and more. In addition, the album contains 12 photographic reproductions of illustrations by detainee Leopold Pinchasovitz (all but one signed and dated in the plate) and two prints (inscribed on verso, dated 1947).
The prints and the reproductions may have been made with the printing equipment used by the detainees in the camp.
Elegant binding with two carved wooden plaques, the front plaque reading 'BeDarchei Nechar' (On Foreign Roads) and the back plaque showing a map of the Red Sea, Northern-Eastern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula (Greater Israel rises above the rest of the continent), with a dozen cities and marked sites – detention camps and other places the detainees had been.
Inscribed on the first leaf "To B.D., with admiration, M." (Hebrew).
Approx. 45 photographs, 12 photographic reproductions and two prints, arranged in the album by means of mounting corners. Size varies, approx. 12X16.5 to 6.5X9.5 cm. Album: approx. 14.5X24 cm. Good condition. Stains, creases and minor blemishes. Worming to some leaves worming (minor; slightly affecting corners of two reproductions). Missing one photograph. Minor wear to binding.
Provenance: The Rimon Family Collection.