This graphic novel beautifully portrayed the feeling of story through its bold and moody illustrations. It felt like a mirror where all feelings of sorrow, frustration and friendship were felt like I was there in the story, almost as if I was a side character watching it all.

I think the strength of this book is really its main character. Nothing is censored and every raw emotion is portrayed. The main character created his own hope by giving himself a purpose to live. In the end, even though it didn't turn out as he hoped for, he never regretted his choice.

I had to read this book twice to really understand what the story was trying to achieve. Sometimes everything does wrap up neatly in a bow but that doesn't mean stories like these still aren't important to tell.

The Photographer of Mauthausen is the semi-factual account of Fransisco Boix, a Spanish photographer captured in France and taken to the Nazi concentration camp Mauthausen. When it's discovered he speaks German, soldiers use him to translate insults and derogatory remarks to their victims. He ends up in a position developing film for Ricken, an evil man intent on creating photographic art out of death. Fransisco believes the film negatives are his only chance at telling the true story of what took place at the camp and decides to sneak them out at any cost: whether it be his life or that of others.

Historical fiction isn't a genre I read often but this story sounded like one I needed to hear. Its graphic novel form ended up making it the perfect medium to read it in because the artwork provided a direct window into the past. The coloring was also done beautifully: fires seemed to glow in dim scenes with grim colors. The storytelling held suspense and I found myself on the edge of my seat a few times as Fransisco needed to make hard but important choices in life-threatening circumstances. This was a really good read and I recommend to anyone who enjoys historical-based stories or enjoys first-person accounts.

Trigger Warning for graphic images of death.

Thank you Dead Reckoning Publishing for providing an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

On man, where do I start with this book? I loved the cover, I loved the description so I decided to give it a read and I was no disappointed. This book did an amazing job catching the absolute horror that was the Holocaust, no matter the camp. The pictures are haunting, the art is fantastic, the color choices are outstanding. This book is over all a must read, especially since it's based off of a true story. The lengths that a person will go through to try and protect others, even when it seems a lost cause, is just breathtaking. He wanted these pictures out of the camp and safe, he wanted them so that others would see the horror they lived through....but just barely. Beautiful story. I would definitely recommend this book and read again!

This book was very hard to look at. The images are graphic and extremely upsetting. But that is their intention--the entire book revolves around those images and how they could be used to condemn Nazi war criminals. Francisco was an amazingly brave young man who did everything in his power to get information about Mauthausen into the outside world through contraband negatives. This was a fascinating story and the less-than-encouraging ending says a great deal, not only about the world at the end of WW2, but also our world now. We still have to ask, what is more important? Retribution to make us feel less guilty or sharing the truth?

My only complaint is that the characters all looked very similar, which made it hard to figure out who was speaking. But that's honestly very trivial.

The story intrigued me. But a story like this deserves a skillful writing which I missed.

"The Photographer of Mauthausen" depicts the historical tale of prisoners of Mauthausen concentration camp during the second world war. These prisoners included intellectuals among them. Francisco Boix, the photographer was among them. Through his narration, we see the history. But a story to be well built up, there are certain other components. I would like to know about "the Francisco before the war" as he was telling the story. The story just jumped into the concentration camp. How they ended up there - this part could be as interesting. I was also demanding the timeline of the events as it was a historical tale.

In graphic novels, you can send your message with only few outlines. An expression with only few brush strokes can make you emotional or amazed or horrified. This book's illustration was detailed. While reading the dialogues and looking at the illustration simultaneously, it's hard to decide where to focus on, if the illustration is too detailed. Many times, the colors of the subjects were indistinguishable. I had to really struggle to distinguish Francisco, because many of the characters looked same to me. Another note, the type size was too small for a graphic novel.

I was glad to know the story, the sacrifice Francisco and his mates did. But I was demanding quite more details from the story and quite less details but focused spots on the illustration.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me the ebook!

I got this as an ARC from netgalley. I have seen the movie on Netflix and I feel like as a comic for a high school history class this would be an amazing addition. It weaves so much information into a comic where a teenager would not feel like its so much about learning. I would definitely buy for my class room!

The art and layout of this comic is phenomenal and I loved the way it tells its story. There were parts of this comic that were difficult to read, given the subject matter, but even during those moments, I was floored by how well it was being told.

This book has a very important message and highlights one of a seemingly infinite number of people whose story isn't well-known. The horrors of World War II aren't overlooked or softened. I can't say that I enjoyed this book, because the word "enjoyed" feels wrong given what this book is about, but I was certainly impressed with what it achieved in its story-telling.

This is a very powerful. Vsey touchingbstory about one of the many concentration Camps built during WWII. It tells the story of a man who lived through one, named Matuthause . A photograph in his previous life before becoming a prisoner of war, now given a job to procure photographs for his party and the rest or the world in order to expose the horrors of went on at the camp.
Haunting imagery sticks the pages of this dark tale of what the worst of humanity can do.
A lesson to our president and future selves to not repeat the past.

The Photographer of Mauthausen is an eye opening story about what goes on inside a concentration camp. I was immediately enraptured by the story right from the very beginning and until the end. I was deeply moved and I feel like fighting along with them for what they have gone through because no one deserves to be treated that way. What they did, fought for and the destruction they caused in this world is too much and I'm so glad that they no longer exist. But the people that went through by their hands will have an effect on them forever.

This book is very important and raw. I didn't know what I was expecting when I saw this book but it definitely wasn't anything like how and what this story entails. Voices need to be heard, we need to listen to them and we must do something about it so that no one ever has to suffer the actions of people with so much hate in their hearts and entire being.

Well done to this book for redressing a balance – the fact that I hardly considered Spanish inmates in Nazi camps, let alone Communist ones. And well done, too, for doing it with a story of high drama and proper grit. Apart from the framing device (which at least shows our hero kept some spunk and friendly spirit, despite all he'd been through, but which didn't really add that much) I really got caught up in the true story of a Spanish Communist, tasked with first translating for the Nazis and Kapos, then employed in the photographic department, recording arrivals and more. The way they tried to get photographic proof of the Shoah out may seem over-blown to some, but from their point of view, where they had no timeline for the end of the war and a need to rely on any possible hope for some justice in the future, it must have been important. This is much beyond a standard story of life in the Holocaust, with all its attendant darkness and camp details, for it has some real-life espionage to go with its historical basis. Some may find the artwork a little coarse, but I really liked this for the story, so it's four and a half stars from me.

I found this book to be authentic and engaging. While the content was justifiable horrifying, the graphic novel gave glimpses of beauty and hope. Rubio did an excellent job in the genre of historical fiction and as a graphic novel. Colomo and Landa combined to provide an appropriate setting for the story, which was mostly stark but gripping.
This would be an excellent high school reading assignment for literature and/or history.
"I received a complimentary copy of this book through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

As an educator of the Holocaust, I am very particular in regards to the materials I use in my classroom to teach such a tough subject. I purposely avoid texts that are riddled with too much violence. While I think that the violence in the story was illustrated well and necessary to the plot development, I would not use this book in a middle school classroom. However, I think this text would be better suited for high school students and would promote it as such.

I believe this is a story that often gets left behind and becomes an untold story of history. I appreciate that the author took the time to share one of these smaller, untold stories of the holocaust. I personally loved it and think it would pair well with other texts of the Holocaust for high school students.

This is a very well written book! Had my attention since the beginning. The illustration was excellent and holds the readers attention. Perfect for people who feel reading history is boring.

A perfect graphic novel. The horrors and hardships faced by the inmates are beyond anyone's imagination. The art work depicts the loves of these inmates. It is unfathomable and unforgettable.

Highly recommend it. Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher Dead Reckoning for an e ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I received an e-copy of The Photographer of Mauthausen from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really didn't know what to expect from this graphic novel when I downloaded it but I am so glad that I did, this was not a story that I had ever heard about and seeing that it is a true story to one of the most talked-about events in history is mindblowing to me.

The Photographer of Mauthausen follows the true story of a Spanish man who was imprisoned in a nazi concentration camp during World War 2, that's the thing that always gets to me is that history leaves out just how many people that were non-Jewish were also sent to the camps. Francisco Boix is the name of the man that the story follows and he is tasked with photographing what was going on in the camps and while doing this he starts to hide away some of the pictures that are later used to convict nazi members.

This was a very heavy topic and like anything to do with the nazi and the concentration camps it was hard to read about but this is such a different perspective then any I had seen before and I am so glad that I read it.

Thank you so much for letting me review a copy.

In this graphic novel, we follow Francisco Boix, a Spanish Communist who ends up in Mauthausen, a Nazi death camp. Due to his language and photography skills, he is taken on as an assistant to an artist wannabe Nazi who photographs the many tragic deaths of the inmates. Boix sees this as an opportunity to collect evidence of the Nazi's atrocities and goes to work trying to hide negatives and move them out of the camp. He is successful, and his photos go on to help with convictions, but he dies tragically young. This is yet another important contribution to the canon of literature that tells us varied perspectives from the second World War. Given that most concentration camp narratives are from Jewish perspectives, I appreciated the fact that this was from a political prisoner and yet another reminder of the many who were tortured and killed for their beliefs and convictions.

Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp. The Photography of Mauthausen tells the story of Spanish prisoner and former newspaper photographer Francisco. Director of the Erkennungsdienst, Ricken, was an amateur photographer himself. He orders Francisco to assist him in photographing the inmate death scenes.

And those scenes are horrific. Injecting gasoline into inmate’s hearts? Pushing prisoners into electrified fences “Just for laughs”? Ricken wanted to turn these terrible deaths into art. Francisco, with the help of the Spanish communists within the camp, wants to send them to the Russians to use for anti-Germany propaganda.

The Photography of Mauthausen is a perfect merging of story and art to tell a true memoir of a particularly malevolent time in human history. The coloring, especially the brown lithographic scenes, added to the emotion in the scenes. This is an important story that needs to be told. Plus it takes a new, more personal, perspective on concentration camp inmates and their guards. 5 stars!

Thanks to Dead Reckoning and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

Graphic novels can be used to incredible effect, especially with laying out stories that may have otherwise go unheard. Moreover, its the type of medium where you can take in a panel for an infinite amount of time, as a way to stop it.

I had never heard of the Spanish photographer Francisco Boix or the Mauthausen concentration camp before, until now. This is a semi-factual account about the life and death in the camp as well as the incredible feat, he partook in, of stealing negatives of photos taken by the Nazis that were later used as evidence to expose the atrocities there.

The artists never shy away from displaying the horror and hardships lived there. The art is very intricate with deep, stark lines and dark, pale colours. The narrator's POV helps with immersion into that world and yet, as it is said later, I won't know what it was really like as I didn't live through the atrocities. There are many questions raised here, about doing the right thing and persistence to fight for a greater good with high risk when your life can be numbered at any time, and what happens when something you have fought for so hard is negligible in someone else's eyes. Worst of all, your mere survival suggests to them that you were a collaborator.

I would have appreciated a note regarding what parts of the novel were embellished. As the author mentions in the foreword and I could see for myself, even those freed may not have lived to tell us their story.

I was not familiar with Francisco Boix’s story before picking up The Photographer of Mauthausen, but the graphic novel struck such chords that I doubt I will ever forget it.

The book offers insight into the lives of Mauthausen's political prisoners and the protocols designed to exterminate them through hard labor. The artistry of the panels chronicles these realities, and while I found some of the illustrations challenging to absorb, I could not help but appreciate the care and dedicated resolve Rubio, Colombo, and Landa exhibit in their handling of the material.

I am drawn to themes when reading, and more than once lost myself in the ideas this story provoked. I was intrigued by the manufacture of visual propaganda as explored in the early portion of the novel, but I was also moved by the narrative's approach to the transformative effects of desperation, survivor guilt, and the question of how to chronicle experience to individuals who did not share in it.

It would be a crime not to mention supporting characters like Mateu and Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier, but their roles are very straightforward. Francisco represents something entirely different. He is a man forced to make hard choices, a man who lives in the shadow of death both before and after the war, and a man forced to navigate a world unready to hear his story. I could not recall seeing this sort of experience fictionalized before, and I liked how the layering of his realities forced me to consider both the handling of war crimes in the post-war years and the varied experiences of Holocaust victims.

Highly recommended.

The Photographer of Mathausen features realistic art and historical storytelling, working in a combination to share a powerful and memorable story. I most appreciated the way this creative team incorporated factual content, and even photographs, in the narrative. Highly recommended!