Francisco Boix

Francesc Boix Campo (Catalan: Francesc Boix i Campo, 31 August 1920 in Barcelona – 7 July 1951 in Paris) was a veteran of the Spanish Civil War and photographer who was imprisoned in the Mauthausen concentration camp. At the Nuremberg and Dachau trials he presented photographs that played a role in the conviction of Nazi war criminals.

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Boix and the second or maternal family name is Campo.
Francesc Boix
Boix as a witness in the American trial against 61 German Nazi criminals that took place in Dachau, 1946
Born
Francesc Boix Campo

(1920-08-31)August 31, 1920
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Died7 July 1951(1951-07-07) (aged 30)
Paris, France
Burial placeCimetière du Père-Lachaise
OccupationPhotographer and journalist
Political partyJuventudes Socialistas Unificadas
Signature

Biography

As a Spanish republican he was exiled in France in 1939. He was recruited by the French Foreign Legion and French Army[1] and captured in 1940 by the Germans.[2] Boix, like over 7,000 Spaniards, was an inmate in the Mauthausen concentration camp[3] between January 1941 and May 1945.[4] From the end of August 1941 he worked in the Erkennungsdienst, the photography department of the camp administration, taking ID photos of inmates and documenting events in the camp. He was able to hide and preserve until liberation about 2,000 negatives[5] taken by the SS head of the department, Paul Ricken,[6][7] as well as by himself.

On January 28 and 29, 1946 at the Nuremberg trial (International Military Tribunal), Boix was called by the French prosecution to show photographs taken by the SS in Mauthausen.[3] Those photos depicted the conditions in which the prisoners lived and were murdered in that camp.[2] They were also proof that the camp was known and visited by high leaders of the Third Reich, such as Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who appeared visiting both the Mauthausen camp proper, and the Wienergraben quarry adjacent to the camp.[7]

In April 1946 Boix was again a witness, this time in the American military trial that took place in Dachau against 61 accused from the Mauthausen camp.[8]

Between 1945 and 1951 Boix worked as a photo reporter in the French press,[3] particularly for a newspaper associated with the French Communist Party.

He died in Paris on 7 July 1951 from kidney failure at age 30.[9]

Films

Francisco Boix, A Photographer in Hell is a documentary directed by Llorenç Soler and released in 2001.[10][11] El fotógrafo de Mauthausen is a Spanish film directed by Mar Targarona released on 26 October 2018.[12] Mario Casas plays Francisco Boix.[13]

Graphic novel

A graphic novel adaptation telling the story of Boix titled Le Photographe de Mauthausen was published in 2017 by Belgian publisher Le Lombard, written by Salva Rubio and drawn by Pedro J. Colombo.[14][15]

References
  1. "Morning Session". The Avalon Project. Yale Law School. 6. Retrieved 14 November 2018.
  2. Lloyd, Nick (30 November 2010). "Capturing Evil - Francesc Boix". Barcelona Metropolitan. The Noise Lab S.L. p. 2. Archived from the original on 7 July 2011. Retrieved 14 November 2018.
  3. Graham, Helen (24 March 2005). The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. p. 127. ISBN 9780191622298.
  4. "Homenaje a Francisco Boix (1920-1951)". Ministerio de cultura y deporte. Gobierno de España (in Spanish). Retrieved 2021-01-30.
  5. "La historia menos conocida del fotógrafo de Mauthausen". La Vanguardia (in Spanish). 2018-10-25. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
  6. Oberle, Clara M.; Pufelska, Agnieszka; Frübis, Hildegard (2018-11-12). Fotografien aus den Lagern des NS-Regimes: Beweissicherung und ästhetische Praxis (in German). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 978-3-205-20268-4.
  7. "The trial of German major war criminals : proceedings of the International Military Tribunal sitting at Nuremberg Germany". Avalon Law. Yale. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
  8. Jardim, Tomaz (2009). The Mauthausen war crimes trial and American military justice in Germany (pdf). p. 82. ISBN 978-0-494-81228-0. OCLC 791642998 – via Library and Archives Canada.
  9. Escolar, Ignacio (19 June 2017). "El homenaje que la democracia española le debe al héroe Francesc Boix". El Diario (in Spanish). Retrieved 24 February 2019.
  10. Mora, Miguel (2002-07-04). "El fotógrafo risueño de Mauthausen". El País (in Spanish). ISSN 1134-6582. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
  11. "Francisco Boix. A Photographer in Hell". Catalan Films. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
  12. "RTVE.es estrena el tráiler de 'El fotógrafo de Mauthausen', protagonizada por Mario Casas". Corporación de Radio y Televisión Española (in Spanish). 22 August 2018. Retrieved 14 November 2018.
  13. "Mario Casas protagoniza 'El fotógrafo de Mauthausen', participada por RTVE". RTVE (in Spanish). 10 November 2017. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
  14. J. Colombo, Pedro (6 May 2014). "Le Photographe de Mauthausen". Minucias (in Spanish). Retrieved 14 November 2018.
  15. Rubio, Salva. "Le Lombard will publish my first graphic novel" [Le Lombard publicará mi primera novela gráfica] (in Spanish). Writers Guild of America, West. Retrieved 14 November 2018.

Bibliography
  • Benito Bermejo, Francisco Boix, el fotógrafo de Mauthausen. Fotografías de Francisco Boix y de los archivos capturados a los SS de Mauthausen, Barcelona, RBA Libros, 2002, ISBN 978-84-7901-847-4 (Biography in Spanish)
    • Benito Bermejo, Francisco Boix, der Fotograf von Mauthausen (Vienna: Bundesministerium für Inneres, 2007), translated from the Spanish by Judith Moser-Kroiss.
  • Graham, Helen. The Spanish civil war. A very short introduction. Oxford University Press. 2005.

Further reading
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