Virginia Longest collection

Overview

Collection Summary

Consists of 38 photographs of the Buchenwald concentration camp soon after liberation, ruins of Hitler's Berchtesgaden home, the Hotel Florida in Bad Wiessee, and other postwar images. The photos were taken with a Kodak Instamatic camera by Virginia Longest (donor), a nurse in General Patton's army, and developed in an Xray laboratory. The collection also includes a bayonet and sheath from the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth), as well as a dagger, that the donor acquired in 1945 in Germany. Some of these materials may be combined into a single collection in the future.

Provenance

The collection was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1991 by Virginia Longest. An accretion was received in 1992.