Auschwitz Photo Album

The NY Times has a disturbing story about a recent donation to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum made by a former U.S. Army intelligence officer who worked in Germany after World War II. The donation was of a photograph album found in an abandoned apartment in Frankfurt which the then soldier took home with him.

The album was labeled "Auschwitz 21.6.1944" and contains 116 pictures of the most notorious of the Nazi death camps. Unlike most of the horrific photos from Auschwitz and the other concentration camps, these photos depict the lives of the senior SS officers at the camp. The album was compiled by Karl Hocker, the adjutant to the camp commandant.

The photos are startling, not because they document any aspect of the lives of the camp's prisoners or the means by which most of them were murdered, but because they depict the SS officers in various, rather mundane, duties and, more tellingly, some of the off-duty activities the officers engaged in at a nearby resort. If you didn't know better, you might regard these photos are relatively dull vacation photos taken by a soldier on leave.

The historic value of these photos is enhanced by a few that depict Josef Mengele at Auschwitz. According to the Holocaust Museum, these are the first authenticated pictures of Mengele at the camp.

What strikes me about these photos is the lack of any visible sign of distress, guilt, or concern on the faces of the people who operated Auschwitz. They are cheerful, seemingly carefree, mugging for the camera with mock pouts and empty tins of blueberries. They engage in singalongs, they lounge on deck chairs, they light Christmas trees.

There are no pictures of Nazis posing with any of the prisoners, flashing a thumbs up sign, or placing Jews into demeaning positions. There are no photos of hooded Jews attached to electrodes, no photos of German Shepherds barking at restrained prisoners.

But I almost expect to see photos like this. And I wonder why I expect to see them. Perhaps the Nazis kept such photos out of their personal albums. Perhaps the Nazis wouldn't think of soiling their hands with the Jewish prisoners, or bothering to pose with them before their extermination. Perhaps the Nazis were just doing their jobs, efficiently burning humans by day, lounging in the forests on the weekend. Looking at these photos, one sees nothing amiss, nothing that might give one pause, even today.

But we know better. At least, I hope we do.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has posted all the pictures from the album on its website, compares Hocker's photos with contemporary photos of the camp's prisoners, and provides a biography of Hocker along with detailed contextual information about the time period.