Buchenwald Camp Medical Correspondence: Rare 2-Document Group 1942–1943

Description

Buchenwald Camp Medical Correspondence: Overview

Two items of correspondence from Oscar Rothacker, a Berlin (NW7) bookseller specialising in medical publications, addressed to the SS site medical officer at Weimar-Buchenwald. A typed postcard of 16 January 1943 confirms an order for fifteen copies of a clinical prescription pocketbook; an invoice card records one copy of Kirschner, “Chirurgie”, part 32, at 16 Reichsmarks, with entries of 26 June 1942, 23 October 1943 and 4 November 1943.

Historical Context

Buchenwald was one of the major concentration camps of the regime. These documents record only the routine supply of books to the camp’s medical office: they name no individual recipient and refer to no prisoner, treatment or medical act, and they are not presented as evidence of any specific crime. Their importance is as a trace of the everyday administration surrounding an institution of persecution.

Buchenwald Camp Medical Correspondence: Description

• Contents: postcard and invoice card
• Dates: 1942–1943
• Inventory code: DOC143

Condition

Filing holes, a blue cancellation cross on the invoice, light handling wear, toning and small storage marks.

Provenance

No further provenance is recorded.

Archive Record

This piece is no longer available and is kept here as part of the collection archive. If you are looking for something similar, contact me and I will let you know when a comparable piece is catalogued.

Further Reading

For historical background, see Deutsches Historisches Museum, LeMO: “Das NS-Regime”.

Historical Responsibility Notice: this document is preserved for research, remembrance and education, in memory of the victims of the system it documents. It does not endorse, minimise or glorify any ideology.