A newly released series of photos taken at Auschwitz and sent last year to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum shows Nazi officers and female SS members in a bafflingly banal (cf. Hannah Arendt) array of activities: singing, relaxing, laughing on group getaways, and even lighting Christmas trees.


International Herald Tribune:

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.

Read more

Click here to see The New York Times’ narrated slide show featuring several photos from the museum’s collection.

Follow this link to see the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s web site.

WAIT BEFORE YOU GO...

This year, the ground feels uncertain — facts are buried and those in power are working to keep them hidden. Now more than ever, independent journalism must go beneath the surface.

At Truthdig, we don’t just report what's happening — we investigate how and why. We follow the threads others leave behind and uncover the forces shaping our future.

Your tax-deductible donation fuels journalism that asks harder questions and digs where others won’t.

Don’t settle for surface-level coverage.

Unearth what matters. Help dig deeper.

Donate now.

SUPPORT TRUTHDIG