Фото-Документы Чрезвычайной Государственной Комиссии... Лагер Освенцим Foto-Dokumenty Chrezvychaynoy Gosudarstvennoy Komissii... Lager Osventsim (Photo Documents of the Emergency State Commission... Auschwitz Camp... The First photo ducumentation of Nazi Medical Experiments at Auxhwitz.)
Leipzig: Чрезвычайной Государственной Комиссии (Extraordinary State Commission), [1946]. First edition. Hardcover. Oblong Octavo (6 1/2 x 9 3/4''). Unpaginated (20 leaves). The original printed light green front and back wrappers have been laid down onto later green buckram boards. Black lettering on front cover.
The graphic and disturbing images in this volume are the earliest published photographic documentation of Nazi medical crimes and experiments perpetrated at Auschwitz, and were ultimately submitted as evidence to the International Criminal Court to be used by the prosecution at the infamous Nuremberg Trials. Originally shot at the concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau upon its liberation, the photographs were taken by forensic experts from the Central Forensic Laboratory of the Main Military Medical Directorate of the USSR Armed Forces under supervision of the forensic expert N. I. Gerasimov, of the central forensic laboratory of the Main Medical Directorate of the USSR Armed Forces, between 1944 and 1945. This visual documentation was gathered as part of the materials of the larger and historically important Soviet "Extraordinary State Commission" (ChGK) first initiated to document Nazi atrocities starting in 1942. This specific material was submitted to the Nuremberg Trials as the second section of a two-part report on the subject of Auschwitz, admitted to evidence as the file titled "File H-1476: USSR No.30" *.
We have not been able to locate any additional individual records for our printed version of this visual report worldwide.
The forty-four photographs taken of former Auschwitz prisoners are all captioned in Russian, including name, age, nationality (Italy, Hungary, France, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Austria, Poland, USSR/Ukraine, and Thessaloniki), diagnosis and severity of respective illness. Twenty seven photographic images included here show surviving inmates who are diagnosed with alimentary dystrophy (starvation) in various stages, with additional information on other secondary illnesses such as edemas, frostbite (with additional comment "exposed to frost without shoes as a measure of punishment), hemorrhages, whooping cough, partial paralysis, bullet wounds, and scars from torture or experiments. In addition seventeen photographs document cases of castration (left-sided or bilateral) after irradiation with X-rays for the purpose of experimental sterilization, hormonal disorders from excess of fat deposition, neutered, artificially developed pigment spots and ulcers due experimentation.
Text throughout in Russian.
Very light staining on covers, front cover along spine, back cover along top half, and some minor smudges in lower foredge corners of some pages, not affecting images. Very good+ to near fine condition. Item #52600
Subtitle: "The documentation by the Emergency State Commission provides material to investigate and establish the atrocities committed by the Nazi invaders and their accomplices, and the damage they caused to citizens, collective farms, public organizations, state enterprises and institutions of the USSR" (aka the Extraordinary State Commission or ChGK).
The Commission was established in 1942 and dissolved in 1947. This series of reports were ordered to "take full account of the villainous crimes of the Nazis and the damage they caused to Soviet citizens and the socialist state, to establish the identity of German fascist criminals aiming to bring them to trial and severe punishment. Approximately 7,000,000 Soviet citizens had participated in the collection of materials and evidence. The first 27 reports published by ChGK constituted the majority of Soviet evidentiary material at the Nuremberg Trials.
*All the material submitted by the Commission is now archived in the International Archives from Nuremberg held at the International Court of Justice. For reference, the digitized images can be viewed under the title "International Archives Nuremberg from the International Court of Justice, the Hague" via The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Accession Number: 2019.401.1 | RG Number: RG-41.024) / Subseries 5: Exhibits, USSR / File H-1476: USSR No.30 ("Camp Auschwitz"), and Stanford as well. The first section of that file is comprised of a broad survey of Auschwitz at the time of its liberation, including images of the dead, survivors, memorial services and a layout of the camp. The second part of the material, deals exclusively with the medical experiments. Our bound volume (which is complete in itself) represents a printed and slightly modified version of only that second portion of the material in that file. Upon comparison, in terms of size and order, it should be noted that the layout of the images on the pages of our printed copy is slightly different in some cases from the scanned documents. Our copy appears to have been trimmed in the margins (not affecting content). Like the printed version, the original scanned material includes the same images, with the same printed captions, however added are typescript notes in Cyrillic, in the margins from those involved in the Soviet Commission, along with the official ink stamp of the commission.
A different bibliographic source for the larger group of Soviet Material submitted at the Nuremberg trails, refers to it as "USSR-8 Report of the Extraordinary State Commission on crimes in Auschwitz, Nazi death camps."
Price: $15,000.00