A-Infos (en) France, Monde Libertaire - History Pages No. 130: The Arrest, the Camps, the Resistance (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Three books offer a fresh perspective on the history of the 
deportations, shedding new light on the subject. First, a new 
perspective through photography. Lior Lalieu and Jean-Marc Dreyfus have 
published the catalog for an exhibition held at the Shoah Memorial. It 
brings together 98 previously unpublished photographs of the first mass 
arrest of Jews in 1941. On May 14, 1941, more than 3,747 men were 
summoned to Parisian police stations at the request of the Vichy 
authorities. Arrested and interned in Pithiviers and Beaune-la-Rolande, 
they were among the first to be deported to Auschwitz in 1942. The story 
was known and documented, but the discovery of a series of entirely new 
photographs taken by Harry Croner, then a German soldier working for 
propaganda services, has significantly altered the narrative. The 
photographer himself is the subject of a study. Jewish on his father's 
side, he managed to conceal his identity and was drafted into the 
Wehrmacht's photographic services until they discovered his identity and 
dismissed him. He was interned in 1944 before embarking on a career as a 
photographer in West Germany after 1945. His photographs had remained 
unpublished. They powerfully attest to the role of the police and 
gendarmerie in the arrests, and also offer snapshots of the arrests 
themselves, the waiting outside the Japy gymnasium, one of the main 
assembly points, and later in the transit camps of the Loiret region. 
This remarkable work is accompanied by a remarkable historical 
perspective written by one of the leading specialists.

A new perspective is added. Jozef Garlinski was first an active member 
of the Polish Resistance before becoming one of its first historians. 
Born in 1913 into a family of lawyers, after studying law, he was 
drafted into the army in 1939, like his father, who was murdered at 
Katyn by the Soviets. After being demobilized, he initially joined an 
armed resistance group, which was later absorbed into the AK (Home 
Army), the main force fighting against the German occupation. Arrested 
in 1943 due to a shared name, while working in intelligence, he was 
deported to Auschwitz and then transferred to other camps. He fled 
Poland in 1947, settled in London, and began writing a significant 
number of books on the Polish Resistance and novels. He was also a 
leading figure in supporting the Polish dissident movement from 1967 
onward. *Volunteer for Auschwitz* remains one of his most important 
works. He recalls the role of Witold Pilocki, who, in order to learn 
what the Nazis were organizing at Auschwitz, voluntarily deported 
himself in 1940. There, he organized an information, resistance, and 
escape network. In 1943, he escaped and delivered a detailed report to 
the Allies on the workings of the concentration camp system. The 
following year, Pilocki participated in the Warsaw Uprising. He was 
arrested and executed by the Soviet political police in 1948. It is on 
the basis of his testimony, corroborated by those of numerous other 
members of the Home Army, that a history of the concentration and 
extermination camp is presented, highlighting the conditions of survival 
and analyzing the various stages of the murder of the deportees from the 
moment of their arrival.

A renewal through testimony, finally.
Benjamin Jacobs, born Berek Jakubowitz, was born in 1919 in a shtetl in 
eastern Poland. After the breaking of the German-Soviet pact, he was 
arrested along with his father and brother. They were first deported to 
Buchenwald, then to Dora, before being transferred to Auschwitz. The 
young medical student owed his survival in the camp to his 
specialization. Assigned to what served as a hospital, he desperately 
tried to restore a modicum of humanity to the dehumanized prisoners. In 
these small, ordinary acts, in a world that was no longer ordinary, a 
glimmer of hope remained, along with the feeling that brotherhood could 
not be extinguished.

The Green Ticket Roundup
Lior Lalieu and Jean-Marc Dreyfus
Calmann Lévy 2026 176 p. EUR22

Volunteer for Auschwitz
Jozef Garlinski
Nouveau Monde 2026 406 pp. EUR23.90

The Dentist of Auschwitz
Benjamin Jacobs
Tallandier 2026 414 pp. EUR22.90

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