As the Allies closed in on Hitler's Germany the horror and scale of the Final Solution and concentration camps became all too apparent. This latest Images of War book provides the reader a truly disturbing insight into the Nazi's brutal regime of wholesale murder, torture and starvation. While the Germans attempted to hide the evidence by demolishing much of the camps' infrastructure, the pace of the Soviets' advance through Poland meant that the gas chambers at Majdenak near Lublin were captured intact. Auschwitz had received over a million deportees yet when liberated in January 1945 only a few thousand prisoners were there as the vast majority of surviving prisoners had been sent on forced death marches to more westerly camps such as Ravensbruch and Buchenwald. Condition in these camps deteriorated further due to overcrowding and the spread of deadly diseases. In every camp shocking scenes of death and starvation were encountered. When British troops reached Bergen-Belsen in April 1945, there were some 10,000 unburied dead in addition to the mass graves, in addition to 60,000 starving and sick inmates in utterly appalling conditions. The words and images in this disturbing book are a timely reminder of man's inhumanity to his fellows and that such behaviour should never be repeated. AUTHOR: Ian Baxter is a much-published author and photographic collector whose numerous books draw an increasing following. Among his many previous titles in the Images of War Series are Hitler's Boy Soldiers, Nazi Concentration Camp Commandants, Hitler's Death Camps in Occupied Poland, Auschwitz and Birkenau ,The Ghettos of Nazi Occupied Poland, German Army on the Eastern Front - The Advance, German Army on the Eastern Front - The Retreat, The Crushing of Army Group (North) and the SS Waffen Division series including SS Leibstandarte Division, SS Totenkopf Division At War, Waffen SS of the Baltic States, Waffen SS at Arnhem and Waffen SS in the Ardennes. He lives near Chelmsford, Essex. 250 b/w illustrations
Industry Reviews
"This book cannot be recommended enough as it goes into great photographical detail, along with concise chapters on what the liberating armies discovered during the last year of the war in Europe, and the efforts of the Germans to hide their crimes and eliminate the survivors in the last moments."-- "IPMS/USA"
"A very nice reference book that contains a well written informative text, many subject specific photographs, well detailed captions and more, all detailing the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps by allied forces during World War II."-- "Armorama"
