ROGERIE, André, Vivre c’est Vaincre ([self published], Paris), 1946

185 x 142mm; pp. 125

Good condition: spine worn at top and bottom, with some loss to the bottom; top-right corner of the cover nicked; internally very good; paper fragile

Exceptionally scarce: no copies located worldwide.

Like all survivors’ stories, Rogerie’s tale is extroardinary and tragic: he was a French resistance fighter, captured in 1943 and initially sent to prison camps in France. In November of that year he was transferred to Buchenwald, then moved to Dora, and then to a camp in Lublin. As the Soviets approached he was evacuated to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Here Rogerie was able to witness first hand many of the horrors of the camp, and committed everything to memory – especially the layout and nature of the camp and its crematoria.

After Auschwitz was liberated, Rogerie found his way to a German school and began to write his account of what he had seen in a schoolmaster’s notebook. As soon as he returned to France he worked tirelessly, with his sister, to complete his manuscript. The resulting self-published work was neglected until the 1980s, when Georges Wellers identified Rogerie’s drawings as the earliest accurate images of Auschwitz, and Rogerie himself began to speak out against Holocaust denial.

[NOTE: half the proceeds to be donated to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum]