TMEJ (Zdeněk). - Lot 290

TMEJ (Zdeněk). Totaleinsatz. Prague, Torst, 2006. Square quarto (approx. 29 × 24 cm), illustrated hardcover by the publisher. Text in Czech, German, and English. Very richly illustrated with black-and-white photographs. First edition of the most comprehensive publication devoted to one of the major photographic records of forced labor in Nazi Germany. The book brings together, for the first time in its entirety, the famous series taken clandestinely between 1942 and 1944 by the Czech photographer Zdeněk Tmej (1920–2004), who was then deported as a forced laborer to Breslau (now Wrocław). The photographs were taken under extremely difficult conditions and developed clandestinely on site. Miraculously preserved despite the risks involved, they now constitute a major historical record of the Totaleinsatz and rank among the most important documentary collections on this chapter of European history. The texts are by Anna Fárová, Tomáš Jelínek, and Blanka Chocholová, specialists in Czech photography and World War II. Condition: very good copy. Hardcover in excellent condition, showing only a very slight, isolated dent on the front cover and a few minimal signs of wear. Interior is in very fresh condition. An old pencil inscription in the upper margin of a flyleaf.