Birkenau – Right Side of the Little Wood
This is the right side of the Little Wood. People were made to wait here for what they had been told was a disinfecting Birkenau shower.
The ruins in the distance are those of the gas chambers and ovens of Krematorium V, their actual destination. A fence blocked their view but the screams of those further along the Nazi destruction line could be heard.
This photo was taken by an SS photographer. It is part of an album discovered after liberation by a female prisoner. Most people create family albums containing photos of their children, wives, husbands, mementos of places visited… Evidently this SS photographer was proud of the work he and his comrades were doing. The people in the photo had only just been brought from the trains where they had been crammed in cattle cars with no food, water or sanitation. Look closely at them, these were the people the Nazis considered dangerous. Not long after this photo was taken they were gassed, and their bodies burned.
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