First-hand Holocaust artifact: black & white photograph of civilian males under guard, digging graves, in cool/cold weather, undated; presumed eastern Europe and Jews (although no emblems visible). The figures in dark clothes/dark visorless cloth hats look like collaborationist "Schutzmannschaft" (auxiliary police of the German 'Ordnungspolizei') who operated in the Baltics, Belorussia & Ukraine (eg. from July 1941 onwards), although the figure in center with broad black flat-top forage-style hat & round emblem is also reminiscent of the Slovak Hlinka Guard militia. Adding credence that this event may have occurred in Slovakia is actually the apparent lack of 'yellow Stars' or other identifying marks on the civilians' clothes, either on the front, back or arms: the Slovak National Uprising of August 1944 temporarily liberated areas of Slovakia from German & the pro-German Tiso regime; the civilians here may have removed their symbols before being recaptured. Units of the Hlinka Guard (and the local ethnic German SS-Heimatschutz Slowakei anti-partisan 'homeguard' & SS-affiliated Freiwillige Schutzstaffel 'volunteer protection corps') subsequently participated in massacres of Jews, together with the German Einstazgruppen H (mass murder) unit, between 1 September 1944 and February 1945. Size (total) 8.9 x 6.2cm. Printed on "Ridax" (Gevaert Ridax - Belgium) development paper & numbered "29". Top left corner missing, image is creased a few times. Presently stored in sealed plastic pocket.


Product Tags: Belgian, Latvian, Estonian, Lithuanian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Eastern European, Slovakian, Photographs, Historical Ephemera and Judaica from Belgium, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Belarus/Byelorussia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, Slovakia, and from World War II, Holocaust, 20th Century, 1940s, which are Unique/Discovery Piece, Object Related Specifically to a Personality or Key Event,