Mauthausen photographer Francesc Boix, honored by Paris city government

Barcelona.- The Paris city council will hold a ceremony on June 16 in honor of Francesc Boix, the Catalan photographer who contributed to the Nuremberg trials with more than 20,000 photographs that documented the atrocities committed by the Nazis in Mauthausen. In preparation for this event, the Museum for Catalan History in Barcelona organized a conference on Thursday in collaboration with Amical Mauthausen, an organization that works to preserve historic memory, and the Catalan government. The Catalan Minister for Foreign Affairs, Raul Romeva, said that historic justice was made thanks to this honor. “We remember Boix not so much as a photographer but for his humanity and dignity,” he added. The remains of the renowned Catalan photographer, who died in Paris in 1951, will be transferred from the Thiais cemetery to emblematic Père-Lachaise, where celebrities such as Molière and Edith Piaf are buried.

As the Catalan Minister for Foreign Affairs, Raul Romeva, highlighted during his speech, Boix’ 20,000 photographs not only facilitated an understanding of what had happened in the camp, but also helped to actually pass judgment on these crimes. “In part it was thanks to Boix’ pictures that the responsible persons were identified and impunity was avoided,” Romeva added. He also spoke of the vitality and hope which Boix maintained during his imprisonment at the Mauthausen camp, which allowed him to put all his effort into saving this material for mankind. “He preserved his humanity in a context that was completely inhuman. That was his victory,” the minister said.