Being there . . . to remain with this writer while he struggles with two books, he’s forcing
himself to read, more than a hundred photographs in each to peruse, and, after such a self-
imposed, demanding assignment, come away with him in sadness and a tear or two. Why
participate with him in such an imposition on the self, striving desperately to write deeply
emotional words of murder while in mental pain? Lest he, and you forget the horrifying grief
the Holocaust caused, that’s why. For this writer, a personal vow was made seven decades ago
when he was in his young teens to his Catholic deity after demanding himself to imbue in the
photographs of faces of mothers, hand in hand with their little boys and girls, on their walk to
the “showers” upon arrival by train in the death camps of central Europe. As a “page”,
retrieving basement World War II books and newspapers, in the Stockton, California, public
library, a shallow kid like this reviewer had the hard task of handling the photos in the special
Holocaust material. Like author Ian Baxter two books referenced below, this non-Jewish
personality can recall and remember, thus in his simple way, again engage in a statement of
token appreciation in the wake of When Hell Surfaced on Earth.
By mid-1943, orders were issued by Hitler for the progressive incineration of the entire
Jewish population of Europe, then, “Deutschland Uber Alles”, the world. Since Alamein and
Stalingrad, the Germans had stopped thinking in terms of a 1940 wipeout, and began recalling
the long stalemates, drawn out stalemates, of 1918, doubting the minds of the proud Prussian
spirit, weakening the will of the brave and resolute German people. The Nazis insisted, “We
cannot lose, so let’s show the world, especially the Allies, how far our ruthless cruelties can
reach.” As Churchill put it, “A greater darkness cast her shroud over the harsh landscape and
the defenseless, innocent Jewish people.” Now, thanks to new books from Pen & Sword,
Military Publishing, distributed by the amazing, invariable Casemate Publishers, we can plea
with ourselves, NAY, pledge, to read and see the severe anguish – – lest we forget.
PLEASE FORCE YOURSELF TO SEE HOW TRAGIC A HELL IT WAS
FOR THE MILLIONS MURDERED BY THE NAZIS, BY GASSING, WORKING THEM TO DEATH, OR
USING OTHER UNIMAGINABLE SADISTIC METHODS TO KILL. NOT MANY TODAY KNOW THE
DEPTH OF HORRORS OF WHAT AUSCHWITZ, BUCHENWALD, BERGEN-BELSEN, DACHAU,
MAUTHAUSEN, RAVENSBRUCK, SACHSENHAUSEN, SORBIDOR, THERESIENSTADT, TREBLINKA,
AND SEVERAL HUNDRED SMALLER CAMPS WERE ALL ABOUT.
Reviewed and Highly, Highly Recommended by Don DeNevi
“HITLER’S DEATH TRAINS – The Role of the Reichsbahn in the Final Solution – IMAGES OF WAR,
Rare Photographs from Wartime Archives”, by Ian Baxter. Pen & Sword MILITARY: 2023; 7 ½” x
9 ½”, softbound, 120 pages, $26.95. Visit, E-mail: uspen-and-sword@casematepublishers.com
“LIBERATION OF NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMPS – IMAGES OF WAR, Rare Photographs from
Wartime Archives”, by Ian Baxter. Pen & Sword MILITARY: 2023; 7 ½” x 9 ½”, softbound, 144
pages, $26.95. Visit, E-mail: uspen-and-sword@casematepublishers.com
Said five-star General Dwight D. Eisenhower, unquestionably the single most important
military figure of World War II, on a visit to the Ohrdruf concentration camp on April 12, 1945,
“The things I saw beg description. The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation,
cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick . . . I made the visit
deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the
future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to ‘propaganda’.”
Ian Baxter is a nonpareil author. His two-volume offering highlights the atrocious wickedness
and evil Hitler’s Nazi sycophants were capable of. The chief or commander responsible for the
death camps was Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler (1900-45), officer cadet, agricultural
graduate and poultry farmer before he joined the Nazi Party in 1923, who saw to it the Jews
were to live in the most deplorable conditions. For years Jews were beaten, starved, and
tortured. Life in the camps was to mean hopelessness and apathy. For a feeling of safety, the
Jews had to huddle together in a single room or space fearfully waiting for what or who would
bust through the door and massacre. No sanitation, none whatsoever, or heat, and no light.
Few of the elderly or young were capable of helping themselves.
In short, Ian Baxter has given us, not ONE, but TWO, first-class photo-capsule biographic-
histories of unflinching systematic camp murder.
