"R'dam na het bombardenment mei '40"

Photo album documenting the devastation causied by the bombardment of Rotterdam, ca. 1940-1941. Containing approx. 450 gelatin silver prints, mostly w. views of bombed building and street views. Divided into 6 sections, each w. approx. 40-130 numb. photographs and accompanying explanatory text. Sections 1-3 and the first half of section 4 in typescript; the remainder of section 4 and sections 5 and 6 in manuscript. Text for section 5 and 6 loosely inserted together with 14 photographs, the other texts placed opposite corresponding photographs. Six typescript poems at the beginning.

The text is strongly anti-German and was likely intended as propaganda for the Dutch resistance. The author may have intended to produce an illegal publication, but this plan appears not to have been executed. The author's name appears on a receipt for photographic development, but is unfortunately illegible. The work seems to be closely related to picture postcard series "Rotterdam, zooals het was", publ. during the Second World War, since the introductory texts are nearly identical, though the precise relationship remains uncertain. The present work may be a parody of the nostalgic tone of that series, or may have been produced by the same maker, with the postcards serving as a censored version of the present work.