Auschwitz through the lens of the SS

In December 2006, a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and former member of the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) wrote to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum archives. As one of its many tasks as a military intelligence agency, the CIC conducted investigations of Nazi perpetrators for U.S. prosecutors in the Judge Advocate General's Office after World War II. While stationed in Germany in 1946, this officer found a photograph album in an abandoned apartment in Frankfurt and took it home with him. In 2007, he donated the album to the Museum, but wanted his donation to remain anonymous.

The album contained 116 pictures taken between May and December 1944 chronicling the life of SS officers and other officials at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. The rare images capture SS guards and Nazi officials relaxing and enjoying time off—hunting, singing, trimming Christmas trees, and more—all while Jews were being murdered at rates as fast as anytime during the Holocaust. The album was created and owned by Karl Hoecker, an adjunct to camp Kommandant Richard Baer.

The album complements the only other known collection of photographs taken at Auschwitz, published as the "Auschwitz Album" in 1980. Those images specifically depict the arrival of Hungarian Jews at the camp in late May 1944, and the selection process that the SS imposed on them. Some of the images contained in the new album were taken just days later. In contrast to documenting mass murder, they focus on the daily lives and recreational pursuits of Nazi officials, and no prisoner appears in any of the images.

Remarkably, many of the album's pictures were taken when the camp's gas chambers and crematoria were operating at and above capacity as Hungarian Jews were arriving and being murdered.

See all of the photos from the Hoeker album and the "Auschwitz album," and learn more about Auschwitz and Karl Hoecker at http://www.ushmm.org/research/collections/highlights/auschwitz/.

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• Auschwitz
• Birkenau
• Holocaust
• USHMM
• museum
• Nazi
• SS
• Mengele
• photography
• WWII
• Hoss
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• Hoecker

[scottiblasto]

Sorry, what was the name of the resort located in Auschwitz?

[ushmm]

@scottiblasto The retreat was called Solahutte, and was considered a subcamp of Auschwitz. It was 17 miles south of the main camp complex. 

[scottiblasto]

@ushmm thanks. does the retreat site exist in any form today? I was at auschwitz two years ago and missed a bunch of stuff while I was there. Might go back next year, would love to see more ww2 stuff in the area while I am there. Any other site suggestions?

[ushmm]

@scottiblasto Apparently, Solahutte is still there, but it is not under the umbrella of the Auschwitz memorial. Staff here believe it is privately maintained and not preserved as a Holocaust site. You can contact the Auschwitz memorial to get an exact address or driving directions. It's not part of the regular tour.

[dke388209]

@ushmm Language should be carefully chosen to provide a clear, unbiased picture of events, especially in this case, given the Nazi's use of distortive propaganda. By describing the "resort" as "within the grounds of Auschwitz" implies the women in the photographs were having fun, smiling, laughing, while in intimate view of camp suffering, something not in evidence in the photographs. That would truely make them mad, inhuman monsters. But, Solahutte was 17 miles away from the main camp complex.

[ushmm]

@dke388209 Thank you for sharing your concerns. It is true that people unfamiliar with the vastness of the Auschwitz complex may misunderstand the position of Solahutte to the sites of mass killing. But, the SS considered Solahutte to be a subcamp of Auschwitz; as part of the larger system, it is correct to say that it was "within the grounds of Auschwitz." Our point is that the command staff themselves understood it to be part of the complex.

[marvy1118]

@andrewkenworthy Bullshit. Do you think a freethinker is immune to ideology? Are freethinkers only capable of rejecting all ideology? Nonsense. All ideologies have their root in free thought.

[5115wb]

@jdillard343434 Before exterminating everyone you don't like, perhaps you could learn to spell?

[Axiss360]

@MisatoK29 Note that it is described as lens, not eye. "Through the eye of the SS" would probably imply that it was being told from that perspective, but this is a bit of a pun. "Lens" implies a camera, and indeed are these not photos?

[Carpediem8110101]

Meanwhile in Russia the soviet slavs and Jews kills 20-50 millions Christians in gulag and the holomodor. Where are the outcry and condemnation and eternal sorrow for them?

The 6 million number has indoctrinated so many people that they forget/doesn’t now that the killing number of the Nazis was around 5-20 million higher. Thus they deny the real number of dead. But they aren’t Jews so don’t worry about any criminal holocaust denial

charges.

[princezak25]

Holocaust revisionism for begginers..... Might make u think just a sudgestion not an opinion...

[MisatoK29]

I don't think this was really taken through the lens of the SS. The SS would have tried to make it look like a paradise or a resort or something.

[1815ish]

@KevinVancouver2 Not honourable;the men of the Heer were Honourable.

[1815ish]

Let not the action's of the bastard's of the SS that served in the Concentration Camp's besmirch the name of the men& women of the Werhmacht,Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine.The latter fought for what they honestly believed was a just cause;they fought for their country,who would not? Werner Hartenstein and Hans Langsdorff actively saved lives.SS Death's Head were NOT soldiers,but murderers.

[P1B1U1H1]

@ushmm You might wish to better emphasize the Roma Auschwitz was the chief killing place for both Jews & Roma. The reason to teach more about the latter is that the motive behind killing the Roma, that they were vagabonds & prone to petty theft (true or false is irrelevant), is absolutely indefensible. All cringe at murders of homeless persons. The Nazis did that as policy.

[P1B1U1H1]

@ushmm You might wish to better emphasize O Porajmos. Auschwitz was the chief killing place for both the Shoah and O Porajmos. The reason to teach more about the latter is that the motive behind killing the Roma, that they were vagabonds & prone to petty theft (true or false is irrelevant), is absolutely indefensible. All cringe at murders of homeless persons. The Nazis did that as policy.