The Photographer of Mauthausen

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

In The Photographer of Mauthausen by Salvia Rubio, we’re off to the notorious Mauthausen concentration camp in this historical graphic novel.

Before we get started, I’d like to thank NetGalley, Dead Reckoning, as well as Salvia Rubio, Pedro J. Colombo, and Aintzane Landa for the ability to review this ARC before it officially releases. The Photographer of Mauthausen is set to release on November 11, 2020.

One Paragraph Summary

The Photographer of Mauthausen is a graphic novel that sheds light on the Mauthausen concentration camp through the lens of Francisco Boix, a Spanish photographer who was sent to the concentration camp to live throughout the war. He soon rubbed elbows with the right prisoners and earned himself a spot with the privileged prisoners. Francisco was able to start working with photography again, but the images he was forced to develop, were the not of the nature that he was used to.

Going In Expectations

The Photographer of Mauthausen is available in the Read Now section of NetGalley, if you’re interested. The cover hooked me. I saw that the illustration was gorgeous and I knew the story would be at least decent. From the first page, I was in awe with both the illustrations and the story.

Raves & Critiques

Usually, historical graphic novels don’t satisfy the itch that I have for literature because they’re just spewing facts with pictures. The Photographer of Mauthausen is not one of these novels. Salvia Rubio does an amazing job with the storytelling, layering in historical details, while captivating you with a dynamic plot line.

I read this novel in one sitting, and I usually can’t do that with novels, graphic or otherwise, of this nature. I ate this up because I wanted to know what happens to Francisco and the other characters involved. I genuinely cared about the characters and cried for them throughout the novel.

Also, I am appreciative of the way the illustrations tell the story, rather than caption it. Both elements work well together as they deliver the message of the story. Most graphic novels do alright with this—it is the nature of graphic novels, of course. However, I’m usually not impressed with the cohesion between story and image. The Photographer of Mauthausen blew my socks off because there were definitely scenes that didn’t need words. 

Reason for Rating ~ Should You Read It?

This graphic novel gave me Fountains of Silence by Ruta Septys vibes. If you liked Fountains of Silence, you’ll love this graphic novel. It has some talk about Franco and how these two historical instances overlap. In general, if you like historical fiction, you’ll love this book. It has everything: stunning illustrations, a deep plot line, historical significance... everything you could want.