Auction 60 Jewish and Israeli History and Culture
Mar 20, 2018 (Your local time)
Israel
 8 Ramban St. Jerusalem 9242209
The auction has ended

LOT 203:

Early American Reports about Auscwitz-Birkenau Extermination Camps - Washington, 1944

Sold for: $1,800
Start price:
$ 500
Auction house commission: 23%
VAT: On commission only
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The German Extermination Camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau, Two Eye-Witness Reports. Published by the War Refugee Board, Executive Office of the President, Washington, 1944. On the back cover: "Reprinted in Eire by the Office of War Information of the United States of America at 15 Merrion Square, Dublin".
Two eye-witness reports about Auschwitz extermination camp. The first report, "Extermination camps of Auschwitz (Oswiencim) and Birkenau in Upper Silesia", known as the "Vrba-Wetzler report", is the account of two Slovakian Jews, Rudolf Vrba (Walter Rosenberg) and Alfréd Wetzler, who had escaped from Auschwitz in April 1944. The Vrba-Wetzler report represents one of the first attempts to estimate the number of those being killed in Auschwitz, and one of the earliest and most detailed descriptions of the gas chambers. The report was distributed in the west at the time of deportation of Hungarian Jews and led to pressure imposed by neutral governments on the regent of Hungary Miklós Horthy.
The other account, "Transport (the Polish Major's Report)", is an eye-witness account by Jerzy Tabeau who escaped from Auscwitz in November 1943.
The booklet includes maps and illustrations of Auschwitz-Birkenau grounds.
Both accounts were first published in English late in November 1944 by the War Refugee Board in the United States, and were later presented as evidence in the Nuremberg trials.
30 pp, 24.5 cm. Good condition. Creases and some stains. Small tears, glue remnants and a cloth strip pasted to the spine.