concentration camp complex - National Archives and Records ...

destroyed. The task fell to Boix and provided him the opportunity, through
1943, to steal over 2,000 small Leica negatives, selected to document camp con­
ditions and official visits as well as executions and other atrocities. The nega­
tives were hidden in various places until the camp’s liberation in May 1945.
Photographs in the Boix collection date between 1941 and 1943, with the
exception of photos of Russian Block 20, scene of an attempted mass escape on
February 2, 1945.Another exceptional item is a photograph taken by Boix himself.
When the 11th Armored Division arrived at Mauthausen on May 5, 1945, Boix
offered his services to the American liberators. On May 22, he was summoned to
the nearby Gusen Camp infirmary to photograph the deathbed confession of
Franz Ziereis, Commandant of Mauthausen. With the closing of the camp, Boix
was repatriated to France. On July 30, 1945, he gave deposition before the war
crimes investigators at the French Ministry of Justice, presumably at that time
handing over some of the Mauthausen film. On January 28, 1946, Boix was called
as a witness for the prosecution in the trial of major Nazi war criminals at the
International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg.Photographs from the Boix
collection, submitted as exhibits by France and the United States, were significant
in documenting official visits to Mauthausen by defendant Ernst Kaltenbrunner
and in graphically depicting camp atrocities,in particular,the treatment of Russian
prisoners of war. On May 11, 1946, Boix again testified as a prosecution witness
at the Mauthausen Concentration Camp Trial, the U.S.A. v. Hans Altfuldisch et
al., in Dachau, Germany. Thirty photographs from the Boix cache of 2,000 stolen
negatives were submitted as Prosecution Exhibit #153.
Francois Boix died in Paris in 1951 at the age of 31.
Items described below are arranged by record group and include both
the original photographs and other materials relating to Boix’s testimony.
RECORD GROUP 153, RECORDS OF THE OFFICE OF
THE JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL (ARMY)
War Crimes Branch, Entry 143, Case File 5­31, Vol. 1, U.S.A. v. Hans
Altfuldisch et al.
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