An unsettling and shocking view of Auschwitz

[king ubu]

I don't know if this has made the news in the US but it's worth having a look here:

http://www.ushmm.org/research/collections/...ghts/auschwitz/

I will not post any of the photos here - go have a look at them yourself. It's all quite unsettling, to say the least. A parallel world, kind of... yet somehow I guess it's normal again, too... Borowski's stories give a shocking eye-witness account of a sort of normality even among the prisoners (granted he was a political prisoner, not a Jew).

In the Shadow of Horror, SS Guardians Frolic

By NEIL A. LEWIS

Published: September 19, 2007

WASHINGTON, Sept. 18 — Last December, Rebecca Erbelding, a young archivist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, opened a letter from a former United States Army intelligence officer who said he wanted to donate photographs of Auschwitz he had found more than 60 years ago in Germany.

Ms. Erbelding was intrigued: Although Auschwitz may be the most notorious of the Nazi death camps, there are only a small number of known photos of the place before its liberation in 1945. Some time the next month, the museum received a package containing 16 cardboard pages, with photos pasted on both sides, and their significance quickly became apparent.

As Ms. Erbelding and other archivists reviewed the album, they realized they had a scrapbook of sorts of the lives of Auschwitz’s senior SS officers that was maintained by Karl Höcker, the adjutant to the camp commandant. Rather than showing the men performing their death camp duties, the photos depicted, among other things, a horde of SS men singing cheerily to the accompaniment of an accordionist, Höcker lighting the camp’s Christmas tree, a cadre of young SS women frolicking and officers relaxing, some with tunics shed, for a smoking break.

In all there are 116 pictures, beginning with a photo from June 21, 1944, of Höcker and the commandant of the camp, Richard Baer, both in full SS regalia. The album also contains eight photos of Josef Mengele, the camp doctor notorious for participating in the selections of arriving prisoners and bizarre and cruel medical experiments. These are the first authenticated pictures of Mengele at Auschwitz, officials at the Holocaust museum said.

The photos provide a stunning counterpoint to what up until now has been the only major source of preliberation Auschwitz photos, the so-called Auschwitz Album, a compilation of pictures taken by SS photographers in the spring of 1944 and discovered by a survivor in another camp. Those photos depict the arrival at the camp of a transport of Hungarian Jews, who at the time made up the last remaining sizable Jewish community in Europe. The Auschwitz Album, owned by Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust museum, depicts the railside selection process at Birkenau, the area where trains arrived at the camp, as SS men herded new prisoners into lines.

The comparisons between the albums are both poignant and obvious, as they juxtapose the comfortable daily lives of the guards with the horrific reality within the camp, where thousands were starving and 1.1 million died.

For example, one of the Höcker pictures, shot on July 22, 1944, shows a group of cheerful young women who worked as SS communications specialists eating bowls of fresh blueberries. One turns her bowl upside down and makes a mock frown because she has finished her portion.

On that day, said Judith Cohen, a historian at the Holocaust museum in Washington, 150 new prisoners arrived at the Birkenau site. Of that group, 21 men and 12 women were selected for work, the rest transported immediately to the gas chambers.

Those killings were part of the final frenetic efforts of the Nazis to eliminate the Jews of Europe and others deemed undesirable as the war neared its end. That summer the crematoriums broke down from overuse and some bodies had to be burned in open pits. A separate but small group of known preliberation photos were taken clandestinely of those burnings.

Auschwitz was abandoned and evacuated on Jan. 18, 1945, and liberated by Soviet forces on Jan. 27. Many of the Höcker photos were taken at Solahütte, an Alpine-style recreation lodge the SS used on the far reaches of the camp complex alongside the Sola River.

Though they as yet have no plans to exhibit the Höcker album photos, curators at the Holocaust Memorial Museum have created an online display of them on the museum’s Web site (ushmm.org) that will be available this week. In many cases they have contrasted the Höcker images with those from the Auschwitz Album. In one, SS women alight from a bus at Solahütte for a day of recreation; meanwhile, in a picture from the Auschwitz Album taken at about the same time, haggard and travel-weary women and children get off a cattle car at the camp.

Museum curators have avoided describing the album as something like “monsters at play” or “killers at their leisure.” Ms. Cohen said the photos were instructive in that they showed the murderers were, in some sense, people who also behaved as ordinary human beings. “In their self-image, they were good men, good comrades, even civilized,” she said.

Sarah J. Bloomfield, the museum’s director, said she believed that other undiscovered caches of photos or documents concerning the Holocaust existed in attics and might soon be lost to history.

The donor, who had asked to remain anonymous, was in his 90s when he contacted the museum, and he died this summer. He told the museum’s curators that he found the photo album in a Frankfurt apartment where he lived in 1946.

The photos of the Auschwitz Album were discovered by Lili Jacob, a Hungarian Jew who was deported in May 1944 to Auschwitz, near Krakow in Poland. She was transferred to another camp, Dora-Mittelbau in Germany, where she discovered the pictures in a bedside table in an abandoned SS barracks.

She was stunned to recognize pictures of herself, her rabbi and her brothers aged 9 and 11, both of whom she later discovered had been gassed immediately after arrival.

Höcker fled Auschwitz before the camp’s liberation. When he was captured by the British he was carrying false documents identifying him as a combat soldier. After the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann in Israel, West German authorities tracked down Höcker in Engershausen, his hometown, where he was working as a bank official.

He was convicted of war crimes and served seven years before his release in 1970, after which he was rehired by the bank. Höcker died in 2000 at 89.

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/arts/des...m0S6jEZvdQQsSsg

By the way: no, this shouldn't be in the political section, in my opinion.

[sheldonm]

I hadn't heard of this. I've been to the museum a couple times ; thanks for posting.

m~

[mikeweil]

That people like Höcker got away with minimal punishment is the biggest scandal in German history to me. This double-tongued attitude of German justice and authorities and establishment was one of the major frustrations for the people of my generation and the one before is, and a motivation for some to join RAF terrorism, which is currently being discussed here once again due to the 30th anniversary of the RAF leaders deaths.

Seeing these Nazis go on without consequences for their deeds was indeed frustrating.

[robviti]

uh, ain't this political? :huh:

[porcy62]

That people like Höcker got away with minimal punishment is the biggest scandal in German history to me. This double-tongued attitude of German justice and authorities and establishment was one of the major frustrations for the people of my generation and the one before is, and a motivation for some to join RAF terrorism, which is currently being discussed here once again due to the 30th anniversary of the RAF leaders deaths.

Seeing these Nazis go on without consequences for their deeds was indeed frustrating.

Same over here. There was a big scandal some times ago about nazi/fascist criminals. Basically, since the "Enemy" bacame Communism, during the Cold War for strategical reason Italy and Germany were the front line. Western leaders decided that pursuing war criminals would had weakned the Eastern Front.

So hundreds of files with names of war criminals, evidences, ecc, regarding the bloodsheds committed in Italy by german army, and italian fascists still allied with Hitler, after September the 8th layed hidden in a closet of Italian Militar Justice Office. One funny, and disturbing as well, particular: the closet was flop, the doors lean on the wall, scaring symbolic for relatives of the thousands of civilian victims, children, women and old people killed by war criminals.

And yes, this shouldn't be political IMO, but sadly it is. REALPOLITIK VS JUSTICE

[Jazzmoose]

uh, ain't this political? :huh:

As soon as the pro-Nazi side shows up, we can move it...

[JSngry]

[porcy62]

uh, ain't this political? :huh:

As soon as the pro-Nazi side shows up, we can move it...

As soon as the pro-Nazi side show up...we can execute them, period.

Edited September 22, 2007 by porcy62

[Alexander]

Certainly not a pro-Nazi perspective, but I fail to see why this is so shocking. What did people expect? That the SS officers were walking around in black armbands, full of the grim seriousness that the murder of millions deserves? These are human beings working in a death factory. If Abu Ghraib showed us nothing, it's that when you don't consider your charges to be human, you won't feel bad about the stuff you're doing to them. No, stacking naked guys isn't same as turning them into lampshades, but the reaction was the same, wasn't it? And look at the photos of southern whites at lynchings. They look like they're at a picnic!

No, this doesn't shock me in the least. If anything, it merely confirms my rather dim view of human nature.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I'm afraid I have to agree with you, Alexander.

It's been shown that, even when people DO consider their charges to be human, they are still prepared to treat them with complete callousness. (I'm thinking of the experiment conducted with students playing roles in, I think, a California university.)

Oh, and I don't think this is political; it's more like what it is to be human.

MG

[king ubu]

I chose the thread's title in order not to downplay the issue... would be much easier to discuss this in german but then it would end up in a monologue, so...

It *is* a distressing fact to me, each time I witness it again, that human beings have this ability to compensate, to behave in a make-believe civilised way no matter in what circumstances... but then possibly that's just some kind of darwinist trait that helps us survive, even in the grim surroundings of concentration camps or wherever.

[king ubu]

"us" meaning mankind, not "me and others" - I'm not sure I would survive any of this, and somehow I'm glad about that.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

"us" meaning mankind, not "me and others" - I'm not sure I would survive any of this, and somehow I'm glad about that.

Nor I. I'm glad I have never been tested.

MG

[porcy62]

That's an interesting issue. Maybe too complex for discussing here. Basically I think that our psychology works exactly like our self preservation instinct, both as victims then as executioners. Like a wolf that cut herself a leg trapped, we cut some part of our "psychological body". This has some effects on our mental health, we have to live like a crippled wolf. Obviously I am oversimplyfing here.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

That's an interesting issue. Maybe too complex for discussing here. Basically I think that our psychology works exactly like our self preservation instinct, both as victims then as executioners. Like a wolf that cut herself a leg trapped, we cut some part of our "psychological body". This has some effects on our mental health, we have to live like a crippled wolf. Obviously I am oversimplyfing here.

It works for me, Porcy.

MG

[king ubu]

That's an interesting issue. Maybe too complex for discussing here. Basically I think that our psychology works exactly like our self preservation instinct, both as victims then as executioners. Like a wolf that cut herself a leg trapped, we cut some part of our "psychological body". This has some effects on our mental health, we have to live like a crippled wolf. Obviously I am oversimplyfing here.

It works for me, Porcy.

MG

yeah, and you can be cynical and say thus issues such as the one discussed here aren't disturbing, or you can let thing get a bit closer to you (at least you can do that in our comfortable, non-endangered, position) and allow yourself to be shocked... hence the cynical part of us would say it's a luxury of civilisation to be shocked by such things... but I hope to never turn that cynical on such important issues.

[king ubu]

That people like Höcker got away with minimal punishment is the biggest scandal in German history to me. This double-tongued attitude of German justice and authorities and establishment was one of the major frustrations for the people of my generation and the one before is, and a motivation for some to join RAF terrorism, which is currently being discussed here once again due to the 30th anniversary of the RAF leaders deaths.

Seeing these Nazis go on without consequences for their deeds was indeed frustrating.

but that is one point that is almost completely neglected in those german papers I read sometimes (SZ) or regularly (FAZ, Die Zeit) - and in fact I find it quite distressing. I really hope that in the circumstances of Germany in the 60s and 70s, I wouldn't have turned into a "Sympathisant", but then who know, under those circumstances... interesting though to see what happens at BKA right now - very positive a developmet, even it much too late.

[porcy62]

That's an interesting issue. Maybe too complex for discussing here. Basically I think that our psychology works exactly like our self preservation instinct, both as victims then as executioners. Like a wolf that cut herself a leg trapped, we cut some part of our "psychological body". This has some effects on our mental health, we have to live like a crippled wolf. Obviously I am oversimplyfing here.

It works for me, Porcy.

MG

yeah, and you can be cynical and say thus issues such as the one discussed here aren't disturbing, or you can let thing get a bit closer to you (at least you can do that in our comfortable, non-endangered, position) and allow yourself to be shocked... hence the cynical part of us would say it's a luxury of civilisation to be shocked by such things... but I hope to never turn that cynical on such important issues.

It's not a matter of being cynical, I am speaking about the deep layers of your mind. Psycologically we tend to preserve ourselves and avoid any kind of pain, but our mind can transform pain in pleasure, if it's useful to survive. Consider the Stockholm's syndrome or things like that, where the victim unconsciously transform the psychological unsustenable pain in love for his executioner. It's a strategy to survive.

[mikeweil]

It *is* a distressing fact to me, each time I witness it again, that human beings have this ability to compensate, to behave in a make-believe civilised way no matter in what circumstances...

I see it rather at a very old attitude, you can find it in the Old Testament - you define your enemy, and anything may be justified. As long as you do not question this definition, everythings is balanced. I still see this all over the world - have you read Amin Maalouf's essay "In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong" (available in German as "Mörderische Identitäten", edition suhrkamp) - I'd really be curious what you think about that.

Edited September 23, 2007 by mikeweil

[mikeweil]

That people like Höcker got away with minimal punishment is the biggest scandal in German history to me. This double-tongued attitude of German justice and authorities and establishment was one of the major frustrations for the people of my generation and the one before is, and a motivation for some to join RAF terrorism, which is currently being discussed here once again due to the 30th anniversary of the RAF leaders deaths.

Seeing these Nazis go on without consequences for their deeds was indeed frustrating.

but that is one point that is almost completely neglected in those german papers I read sometimes (SZ) or regularly (FAZ, Die Zeit) - and in fact I find it quite distressing. I really hope that in the circumstances of Germany in the 60s and 70s, I wouldn't have turned into a "Sympathisant", but then who know, under those circumstances... interesting though to see what happens at BKA right now - very positive a developmet, even it much too late.

I think it is still neglected - you read the current Spiegel series on the RAF? Nothing really new there, which is disappointing if one knows how close Stefan Aust was to the RAF scene. Ex-chancellor Helmut Schmidt makes admits woefully how difficult it all was, but he never talks about what actually brought young Germans to go that far. This is the question that really interests me, and it is not answered to this day.

I was there at the time, and I wasn't even a "Sympathisant", as I thought it crazy to import Tupamaro strategies into Germany or take Mao as a yardstick, but I wasn't on the other side either. The problem was the the government and the establishment didn't take the younger generation's criticism seriously. They defended their newly found comfortable status, and were not willing to question their attitudes. They had been brought up in that mindset.

There is a new book edited by psychotherapist David Becker who tried to work with ex-terrorists - a very interesting read. The mindset was just as brutal as that of fascist organisation. It was born from the same source.

Ubu we will meet and talk later this year .....

[king ubu]

you're probably right, porcy - anyway I wasn't accusing you of cynicism!

mike, I haven't read that, no... maybe next year after I'll get university done... will take a note!

[Tim McG]

For the past three years, one of the few remaining survivors of the Holocaust comes to the high school where I teach and gives this haunting recollection of what she, as a little girl, had to suffer through during her internment at Auschwitz.

The images in her opening video are etched on my brain and have shaken me to the very depths of my Soul.

I wept when I saw her speak for the very first time....and my students were stunned by what she had to say.

At the end of her presentation she warns us not to hate, but to never forget.

I was fortunate enough to met and speak with her and as we hugged....she apologized to me for my tears.

I am, in fact, a changed man.

Edited September 23, 2007 by GoodSpeak

[Christiern]

I have to agree with Alexander. These pictures are very disturbing, but we have seen this sort of thing before, and much worse. I still recall vividly the film footage my grandfather took me to see in 1946, when I was 15. It was in Denmark and the war years were still highly focused in the minds of people. I had spent the war years in Iceland and the U.S., so my grandfather wanted me to see how brutal the Germans had been. The films left an indelible mark on me and I really don't think I will ever see anything that is more horrifying, so, to me, these pictures are but a grim reminder. Sure, there are equally horrifying human atrocities being performed today, but there is no yardstick by which such acts can be measured--there is a level above which degrees of inhumanity cannot rise. The mentality that sowed the acts at Auschwitz is the same one we see at work in Darfur and saw at Abu Ghraib and in the smiling faces of American lynching celebrants.

Don't mean to, in any way, minimize the barbarity documented by the posted photos, just had to point out that they are almost an after-shock at this point--at least to those of us who are old enough to be experiencing dèjá vu.

[Aggie87]

Don't mean to, in any way, minimize the barbarity documented by the posted photos, just had to point out that they are almost an after-shock at this point--at least to those of us who are old enough to be experiencing dèjá vu.

I think that's part of the point though. There are new generations that didn't experience what you did, or saw what you've seen. It's not readily available for most of the world's population. If this helps younger people to begin to understand the atrocities that the Nazis perpetrated on fellow humans, it's beneficial, IMO.

I've visited Dachau a few times (the first time at about 14-15 yrs old), and it's something that will be with me forever. The feeling you get walking by the ovens, seeing the gassing showers (which were never used at Dachau, but still intended for that purpose), and seeing the authentic film footage in the museum there, is one of the most sobering exeriences I've ever had. The Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. is powerful as well, but to be on the actual ground where that took place is something else.

Later, I took my 16 year old nephew when he visited us in Germany, so that he could see that Germany wasn't just castles, beer, and Hofbrauhauses. I believe it hit him in a similar manner.

edit - Like goodspeak, I've also had the honor of hearing a Holocaust survivor speak. Herman Zimmerman came to my community and spoke to the elementary school children there, to give them some of his personal history. He wrote a book, "Ein Engel an meiner Seite", which I picked up an English copy of, and he was kind enough to sign it for me.

Edited September 23, 2007 by Aggie87

[marcello]

Another book that has many, many personal testimonies is:

A honest and truthful record.

And a harrowing one.