1The “Auschwitz Album” has shaped widespread iconographic representations of the Holocaust. But far from objectively documenting the whole process of extermination, the album is above all an internal propaganda project that celebrates the efficiency of the work of the SS during the deportation of the Jews from Hungary. By raising questions about the conditions under which the album was made and transmitted, those who commissioned it and those who received copies of it, and about the staging of a number of the images, the authors give us a timely reminder that photographs should be examined just as critically as textual sources.

2Photographs have had a major influence on the form the Holocaust has taken on in the collective imagination, and so play a central role in representations of it. Some of these images stand out as distinctively important, often because of their power or the violence that they depict. These include photographs of mass shootings in Eastern Europe, those from the ghettos—the photograph of the “Warsaw Ghetto boy,” first and foremost—and the two collections of images from Birkenau. One of these consists of four photographs taken secretly by Alberto Errera, a member of the Sonderkommando. The other contains nearly two hundred pictures taken by SS members, and is often referred to as the Auschwitz Album or as Lili Jacob’s Album, after the survivor who discovered it. For more than half a century, the photographs primarily used to show Auschwitz and the Final Solution have come from this second album. These images are known across the world, and are used frequently. But they have never really been analyzed or interpreted as a whole.

3The importance of these photographs is counterbalanced by a tacit assumption that shapes our relationship with images: the apparent ease with which they are understood seemingly frees us from the need to properly analyze them. This assumption lies at the root of numerous debates. An exhibition took place in Hamburg in 1995, “Vernichtungskrieg: Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941 bis 1944,” focused on the Wehrmacht’s crimes. This relied on a substantial number of photographs that challenged the myth that the German army did not participate in Nazi crimes, and was attacked because of a number of analytical errors regarding the images used. [1] In 2008, an exhibition of the work of the photographer André Zucca in Paris, where pictures were presented without any context at all, led to another controversy. [2] Historical explanation was added as a result of the criticism, but this dealt generically with the occupation rather than providing a genuine analysis of the photographs, one that interpreted them and explored their different elements.

4These two examples give a perfect example of how photographs are generally perceived. Their role is basically illustrative, with no need for any deeper analysis, and they can simply be used to portray historical fact. If they are the work of a “great” photographer then they are purely artistic, and sufficient in and of themselves. The image strikes the retina, and the force it exerts shapes our representations. On this view, photographs can speak for themselves without any difficulty, offering no sense that they are to be studied, interpreted, and read in the proper sense of the word. They are shown and inflicted; they deal a blow; and they are absolved from playing any documentary role beyond providing illustrations. Instead, however, images must be treated as objects in their own right, and approached as we would any historical document. This argument has been made about images of the Holocaust regularly over the last twenty years, by Sybil Milton, [3] Ilsen About and Clément Chéroux, [4] and more recently by Sarah Gensburger. [5] The work of specialized historians of photography like André Gunthert [6] and André Rouillé [7] is confined to the visual without being further integrated, and so without offering us a way of understanding this corpus of documents in its own right. In this regard, the Auschwitz Album is an important example. [8]

The object

5The object that has come down to us is an album that initially consisted of 197 photographs, titled Umsiedlung der Juden aus Ungarn (“Resettlement of the Jews from Hungary”). It is divided into eleven parts, each of which is a chapter. Beyond these basics, we know nothing: who owned it originally, who commissioned it, precisely what the brief was that led to its creation, what instructions the photographer(s) received, what its point was, who got copies, who decided, say, which images to use and how to arrange them, who put the chapters in their current order, and even who took the pictures. There is no mention of the album in any archive. We have only 192 positives, no negatives, and no other prints from the same set. [9] It is, in short, an isolated document, but one that has for decades been ubiquitous in representations of the Holocaust. That is because it is illustrative. Known by all, no one truly questions or analyses it as one should any historical document, particularly using the tools of external and internal criticism.

6Even its usual name, the “Auschwitz Album,” is problematic. [10] The title is understandable because of its historical importance, but it is reductive. Furthermore, numerous albums were made in Auschwitz, as reported particularly by Wilhelm Brasse, an Auschwitz survivor and a professionally trained photographer who was employed at the Erkennungsdienst, the camp’s photographic unit. Several types of albums exist from Auschwitz. The Bauleitung Album shows buildings and construction sites. [11] Another of the same type shows the construction of the SS hospital (SS Truppenlazarett) at Birkenau. [12] It is likely that other albums have been kept by families of former SS members. That was the case with the SS Truppenlazarett album, which was preserved by the descendants of Eduard Wirths, the chief doctor at Auschwitz, and finally given to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in 2015. Similarly, Karl Höcker’s album was found by an American soldier in Frankfurt in 1946 and given to the USHMM in 2007. [13]

7So, despite there being several Auschwitz albums, the one examined in this article is the only one that shows the Final Solution being put into operation at Birkenau. [14] The album (which was found in Dora by a survivor, Lili Jacob) [15] has a title of its own, “Resettlement of the Jews from Hungary,” which should be preferred because it reminds us of the events depicted and offers a rough date for the album: the spring of 1944. Beyond the object itself, we have only a little scattered information about it, from four very different witnesses. The album was used as an exhibit in two important trials. The first was Adolf Eichmann’s, which took place in Jerusalem in 1961, during which a survivor, Esther Goldstein, who appears in photograph 90, identified a number of the victims pictured in the album. [16] Second, during the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials (1963–5) the album helped convict the SS member Stefan Baretzki, who was photographed taking part in a selection: disembarking trains, holding roll-call, and sorting men and women into lines (photograph 32). Wilhelm Brasse was questioned as a witness during preparations for the trial. Bernhard Walter, a former SS member and the head of the Auschwitz Erkennungsdienst, was questioned about it on August 13 and 14, 1964; after an initial denial, he admitted he had been present on the ramp, but did not claim that he had taken the photographs in the album. [17] In addition to Goldstein, Jacob—who also appears in one of the images (photograph 173)—identified a number of people, including her relatives. Both provided essential further information for understanding what the album shows.

8Brasse’s affidavit before the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials showed that most of the photographs were taken by Walter and his deputy, Ernst Hofmann, but that some came from a film deposited with the unit by the commander of the camp, Rudolf Höss himself. [18] But Brasse could give no further details about the images in question. While we can see differences in the quality of the photographs, particularly in how they were taken—framing, the choice of wide-angle or close-up shots, and so on—it is impossible to attribute any of the images to a specific photographer. It is certain, however, that a large number of them—those taken from train roofs, for instance—were not taken by Höss. The album is therefore made up of photographs by three different authors. It is impossible to determine who chose the images and decided how they were to be ordered and arranged. There are three possible levels for each of these operations: Höss, who Brasse says was involved and who seems to have ordered the album to be made; Walter and Hofmann, who were its authors; and one of the prisoners working in the camp’s photographic unit. The only other fact Brasse offers is about the various titles within the album: these were made by Tadeusz Myszkowski, an artist who had been held in the camp since 1940 and whose skills were used by the SS, particularly at the Erkennungsdienst. [19] Myszkowski was transferred to Sachsenhausen in September 1944, meaning that the album was therefore made in late summer 1944 at the latest. We have no way of knowing who decided on the order of the chapters.

A copy of an album

9When we speak about the album, we do so in the singular. However, while we have only a single copy, there are indications that several were made. First of all, Walter cannot have decided himself to take the photographs, as he was only a non-commissioned officer (SS-Hauptscharführer) and was forbidden to take photographs of anything to do with the Final Solution. [20] This restriction could only be lifted by Auschwitz’s highest authority, the commander; it may well even have needed Berlin’s agreement. The scope of the “documentation” the album provides, and how close it gets to operations (sometimes interfering with them and slowing them down) further reveal how important it must have been to make the album. The album must indeed be something extraordinary. It would not have been made only in a single copy, and certainly not just for SS-Hauptscharführer Bernhard Walter. Brasse claimed fifteen copies were made. [21]

10The topic of the album must also be examined, since it depicts an operation unlike any other, one whose sheer scale can be given in just a few figures. Between the beginning of the mass murders at Auschwitz in May 1942 and the end of April 1944, 529,000 Jews arrived at the camp. Under Eichmann’s plans to deport Hungarian Jews, 650,000 were to be transported in three months, more than in the whole of the preceding two years. The scale of operations at Auschwitz is unparalleled in the history of the Final Solution. The monthly average at Treblinka—the death camp where, up to that point, the death toll had been highest—was about 120,000 in July–December 1942. An average of 217,000 people were expected every month during the “Hungarian operation,” not counting the other transports arriving at Auschwitz from all over Europe. [22] In May 1944, 229,000 Jews came to Auschwitz in just fifteen days, of whom 215,000 were from Hungary. This was made possible by one man: Höss. He had been assigned to the Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt (WVHA, SS Main Economic and Administrative Office) in Berlin in December 1943, but was urgently recalled to Auschwitz early in May 1944 when Eichmann discovered that nothing had been prepared, and that the site was unequipped for such an undertaking. Höss took the necessary measures within a few days, starting by completing the new ramp, work on which had been stalled for months. [23] Another wholly new project was added to the project of destruction: it was decided that Jewish prisoners would be used to meet the labor needs of the Jägerstab, which was responsible for producing aircraft. [24] For the first time, Auschwitz was not just a place of no return for Jews. And this was the first time since late 1941 that Jews were brought into the Reich; up to that point, everything had been done to make it Judenrein (purified of Jews). Höss was involved in this decision from the outset, and within the WVHA was responsible for defending it to Eichmann as preparations began for deportations in Budapest. These quickly became known there as “Operation Eichmann.” In Auschwitz, however, the operation was so closely associated with the camp’s founder and first commander that it was called “Operation Höss.”

11Examining the album, we see just how far it goes to present “Operation Höss.” It focuses only on Auschwitz (the “arrival”), and shows nothing of operations upstream in Hungary (the “departure”). It does not show “Operation Eichmann” but instead the unparalleled operation being carried out at Auschwitz, and how an unprecedented influx of human beings and goods was managed in order to achieve it. This is illustrated both by the photographs’ subjects and by the way the album is organized: it was designed to show the smoothness of operations and their conformity to the expectations of the authorities. The album showcases and emphasizes the work of Höss. Page after page, shot after shot, it shows just one thing: a triple influx. Of one train after another, first of all. Of Jews, secondly, who are reified and reduced to goods to be unloaded and dealt with by the SS. And, thirdly, of the other material these trains carried: property features heavily in the album—sometimes carried by the victims (images 7, 12, and 16, for instance) and sometimes in heaps (images 3, 87, 120)—and is the subject of the final chapter, “Effekten.”

12The SS are not the subjects of the album, and neither are the structures that enabled the process of destruction. The former are visible in the foreground or background of only twenty or so photographs. They are the main subject of at most a dozen. The means of killing are barely visible. There is no image showing the full breadth of the ramp that was first used for the occasion. Only photographs 3 and 4 show its full length, and even there the main subject is still the trains and the unloading of their cargo. Nor are there any close-up images of the crematoria, although they are occasionally visible in the background (KIV in image 118 and KIII in photo 134) or at the very end of the ramp (image 3, 4, 16, 19, 20, and 27). There were undoubtedly restrictions in force on showing the killing itself. But the crematoria are not absent because there was a ban on photographing them: these buildings and even the ovens were often photographed, and a whole section of the Bauleitung Album is devoted to them. [25] They could have been pictured without showing their use in killing. If we grant that the album was intended for those high up in the regime, and particularly Heinrich Himmler, this omission becomes easier to understand. There was no point showing what went on in these buildings to the men who thought up the Final Solution, and it would in any case have been unimaginable to send them something so distasteful. The album’s omissions are not to hide the reality of what was happening, but because its audience already knew all about it, and weren’t the sort of people one sent such grisly images to. The album is not a fiction intended to distort reality or present these sites misleadingly, unlike the two films made at Theresienstadt and Westerbork in 1944. [26] It is meant for internal rather than external propaganda.

13Those it was made for knew what happened to those brought to the camp, and did not need to be shown. The album’s subject was not the killing itself but the way it was carried out: the successive stages by which a continuous, unprecedented flow of people was managed during the process of destruction, as shown through dozens of mostly identical images. Women and men get out of the carriages, crowd together on the ramp, go through selection, and head either to the gas chambers or to registration. Several photographs are identical and offer no particular information. There are a small number of “ethnic” and crudely anti-Semitic photographs, close-ups and group images which conform to the propaganda of the day, but these are relatively uncommon and are not the album’s subject. The important thing was to show the flow of people arriving at Auschwitz and how it was sorted, managed, and directed. The album’s layout makes it absolutely clear that the process was to act as a funnel.

14A large number of people arrived by train and had to be “processed.” Most were considered unsuitable, and were killed. Those spared are then shown, in the chapters “Nach der Entlausung” (After the Delousing) and “Einweisung ins Arbeitslager” (Introduction to the Labor Camp), going through the successive stages of entering the camp. Only twenty-three images show the space of the concentration camp itself. The album ends with what was left over: physical belongings. It focuses often on how deportees’ property was managed. Such property, which is omnipresent in pictures of the ramp, was collected there after the selection (images 176–80) and moved to the two Kanadas, warehouse areas where Jewish property was sorted (images 181–97).

15We can assume that copies of the album were meant, first and foremost, for the Nazi leaders involved in the project: Himmler, Albert Speer, Oswald Pohl, Hans Kammler, and Richard Glücks. The latter four of these men dealt directly with the labor force obtained from the Hungarian operation. Part of the album is devoted to this force, particularly chapters 9–10 and a number of photographs taken on the ramp that show those “selected.” The operation was strategically important in a number of different ways, and these four were the album’s logical recipients. So was Martin Bormann, who took a close interest in the realization of the Final Solution. [27] We can also assume a copy went to Eichmann, who designed the Hungarian operation, as well as others involved like the plenipotentiary for Hungary, Edmund Veesenmayer.

16The surviving copy is probably Walter’s—the least important person to receive a copy of the album. [28] There is nothing to indicate this copy was exactly identical to the others. Another photographic document is important in this respect: the Stroop Report on the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto. Comparing the two documents teaches us much. We have two copies of the Stroop Report, which include differences we will return to, and we also have a group of photographs taken during the operation but left out of the report, which were recovered when Jürgen Stroop was arrested. Each of the two surviving copies (of four that were made) has fifty-three photographs, but only thirty-seven images in common. [29] These are presented in a different order, showing that copies of such albums were not always produced strictly identically.

17The album on the “Resettlement of the Jews from Hungary” has two features that show that this is undoubtedly also the case here. A photograph appears in duplicate as both number 53 and 79. The margins framing them are different, showing the two prints were produced at different times. There is nothing particularly interesting about the image, and it seems to us impossible that the other copies of the album would also have included two prints of it. This copy was likely put together after the others were made using leftover prints. The photographs that compose it come from a very large number of different prints, even when photographs were printed from the same film, as with images 3 and 4 reproduced below.

At the heart of the killing center

18To understand what the album shows, we must begin with the complex topography of Birkenau. One hundred and seven photographs were taken on the ramp alone. [30] This was still under construction when these were taken, as can be seen in some of the images. It was never completed; plans show that it was meant to be a full-scale freight station. [31]

19The distinctive space that the ramp constitutes (and which some survivors called a station) has been poorly grasped or even positively misunderstood. An exchange at the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials between the prosecutor and a former SS member, Hans Hoffmann, is helpful:

20

Prosecutor Vogel: Do you remember where the transports of prisoners who were deported to Auschwitz were disembarked? Where was this ramp?
Hans Hoffmann: There were two.
Prosecutor Vogel: Yes.
Hans Hoffmann: The original was where the … I don’t know how to describe it.
Prosecutor Vogel: Closer to Auschwitz?
Hans Hoffmann: When you crossed the platform, that is, beyond the railroad tracks, was the first, then the ramp was between the two camps.
Prosecutor Vogel: Yes. So between the Auschwitz camp, the Stammlager, and the Birkenau camp.
Hans Hoffmann: No, that’s not what I mean.
Prosecutor Vogel: No?
Hans Hoffmann: Oh, the first [ramp], yes.
Prosecutor Vogel: Yes.
Hans Hoffmann: Yes. At first. And later, [the ramp] was in Birkenau, between the two camps.
Prosecutor Vogel: So, in the Birkenau camp itself.
Hans Hoffmann: Almost [our emphasis], yes. [32]

21This distinctive topographical feature is extremely difficult to grasp. [33] Visitors to Birkenau after 1945 have seen and understood the ramp as an integral part of the camp. But this is wrong. It was a separate space between the two sectors, BI and BII, that made up the Birkenau concentration complex, and was not formally part of the Konzentrationslager (KL). It is crucial to understand this distinctive feature, and the spaces that made up the geographical whole of Birkenau (and not the camp alone). The ramp and the Hauptstrasse (main street) that runs along it did not give access to the sub-camps around it, and were not a point of entry into the camp. The ramp and the Hauptstrasse led directly to the two large crematoria and gas chambers, KII and KIII. Most of the selection and killing operations took place in an area 800 meters long and 40 meters wide, the heart of which was the center of the ramp.

22It was in this constrained space—far from the immense KGL (Kriegsgefangenenlager, prisoner of war camp) that extended as far as the eye could see—that the Final Solution took place at Birkenau, and this was where essentially where the album’s photographers worked. The ramp goes from the central watchtower to KII and KIII. It is made up of three tracks. Once in Birkenau, a first switch directed transports rightwards to tracks 2 and 3. These were separated by a landing dock, with markers acting as reference points. The double platform meant two transports could be accommodated at once. Track 1, on the left, had no platform. It was an exit route meant primarily to let trains exit and to be hitched to transports that were to be towed out. According to the plans, the ramp had a “usable length” of 600 meters. Depending on the composition of the transport, this allowed it to accommodate 40 to 60 wagons, most of them between 10 and 15 meters long. [34] Track 3 extended for nearly 800 meters, and an even greater length of it was used. This can be seen in image 27, where the transport stretches until the junction point with track number 2 and perhaps even beyond.

23There was secondary access to BI from the ramp, but no access to BII. To reach it one took Strasse A, which was 700 meters long, beginning at the ramp and passing between the BIIc and BIId sub-camps until it reached the other end of BII. The gates to the BII and BIII (“Mexico”) sub-camps were located there, on the perpendicular Strasse B. This provided access to crematoria and gas chambers IV and V (KIV and KV), to the Effektenlager (Kanada II, the warehouse area for Jewish property), and to the Zentralsauna, where detainees going to the camp were registered. At its other end, it gave access to the Kommandantur and the Birkenau garrison, which marked the actual entrance to the KGL. Since the war, the central watchtower has become the entry point for visitors, but it played a very different role when the site was active: it did not offer access to the camp but was instead the point of entry for Jewish transports and supplies for the camp, and the point of exit for the property of the Jews who had been killed, which was then distributed throughout the Reich.

24The album focuses almost exclusively on the killing center. The concentration camp was photographed only once, with a series of ten photographs taken inside BIIc. Apart from this, the photographer(s) worked primarily in the narrow space of the killing center and its various structures: the ramp, the Hauptstrasse parallel to it, and the start of Strasse A perpendicular to it; the area that contained KIV and KV; the Zentralsauna area, adjacent to Kanada II; and the two Kanadas.

25A large number of the photographs were taken in a radius of about 50 meters around the center of the ramp, at the junction with Strasse A, where transports were split in two to make room for the different flows of people along the route (see images 23, 27, and 59 below). We can see in a number sequences that the photographer, whether Walter or Hoffmann, began his “documentation” on the ramp and then went to the entrance to Strasse A, photographing groups of “selected” women and men who had been sent to the Zentralsauna to undergo registration procedures, or groups of women, children, and men sent to the KIV and KV gas chambers along the same road. Each of the thirty-four photographs taken on Strasse A was made within a space of about fifty meters, starting at the gate that marked its entrance. [35] The photographer never accompanied a group as it crossed Birkenau along either Strasse A or B. He worked in a small space around the center of the ramp, a perimeter of fifty meters radius. This was undoubtedly to save effort, as there was nothing on the rest of the route that he would not have been allowed to photograph. About a hundred shots were taken in this small space as different transports arrived.

Deconstructing the “album”

26The question of the film is of crucial importance. Because we do not have the negatives, we cannot know the order of the photographs and therefore the transports, as well as that of the other scenes. But it is possible to reconstruct series of photographs—a term that is to be preferred because, while it is obvious that those images taken a few seconds apart come from the same roll of film, it is impossible to tell which series belong to the same film. This deconstruction of the album is all the more necessary because of the object’s nature, produced as it was for internal propaganda: its purpose is to showcase the work done by the SS. By recovering the reality this construction erases, we can analyze the document and describe the operations as they were carried out, transport by transport and selection by selection. As obvious as it is, such a reminder is fundamentally important. We can use it to emphasize that, beyond the staging of each photograph, we are dealing with a story constructed by the SS itself, and that to a great extent this story has never been formally investigated.

27By relying on a range of elements and details, we can connect some of the photographs and so reconstruct series of images and, in some cases, work out their original order. The same deportees figure in several of the pictures, which allows us to group these images within the same time period. The trains are made up of a huge variety of carriages of many different types and from different origins (Germany, France, Hungary, etc.). With the Reichsbahn, for instance, freight wagons of the Posen, Hannover, Karlsruhe, and Essen types are visible, each constituted differently. Almost none of this multitude of wagons are identical and each transport is consequently unique, because no two trains shares the same arrangement of carriages.

28As well as entire series there are groups of photographs taken at the same time. Numerous panoramic views in several shots were apparently taken, initially meant to show large-scale scenes but eventually distributed throughout the album. [36] As can be seen clearly in the Bauleitung Album, the Auschwitz photographic services often made such scenes, consisting of two, three, or four views grouped together as a set. [37] This amounts to a sort of habit, and shows that they wanted to portray large-scale scenes. In some cases, we can also see where photographs existed that have not reached us, as with images 134 and 148, taken at the end of the ramp facing KIII. These constitute the outer parts of a triptych whose central panel is missing.

Photograph 148

Photograph 148

Photograph missing

Photograph missing

Photograph 134

Photograph 134

29This example illustrates several characteristic features of the album. The first is the distribution of the images: these two photographs are presented in the same chapter, but four pages apart, with the connection between them erased. We can infer, too, that a photograph has not reached us. Why wasn’t it kept in? Is it perhaps because this copy of the album was put together from unused, leftover photographs—that is, that the two images presented here were not selected when the other two albums were put together? Or because there was something wrong with the photograph in the center? Or because it wasn’t kept in when this copy was being put together?

30As research currently stands, once we have reconstructed these sequences we can confidently say that the album is above all composed of photographs taken during the arrival of at least four different transports: Lili Jacob’s (at least twenty photographs, and perhaps as many as forty), Esther Goldstein’s (at least seventeen photographs), and two other transports whose provenance is unknown (at least five photographs for one, and at least seven for the other). But a far larger number of transports is visible on many of the photographs: at least seven different transports can be identified on the ramp alone, 5 percent of the total number that came from Hungary. [38]

31The images of these transports were taken on the ramp before, during, and after selection. The photographer followed groups of people who were sent to the gas chambers or to be “registered” in the camp. Beyond the four series that can be associated with a particular transport on the ramp, several groups can be reconstituted without it being possible to tell whether they come from these transports or others. The stages of selection represent almost two thirds of the photographs, and make up the core of the album.

32The remainder of the group consists of seven other major series. Two relate directly to the work of killing: a sequence of twelve shots showing men, women, and children on their way to KII and KIII (it is not possible to associate these groups with any of the transports photographed on the ramp), and another sixteen images showing men, women, and children waiting in the area around KIV and V. [39] Three other series deal with those who have gone through selection: one, containing six images, shows a group of men leaving the Zentralsauna; a second, also of six images, shows a group of women who have also been through registration; a final one, already mentioned, shows several groups of women in camp BIIc. Finally, two final series consist of photographs taken in Kanada I (eleven images) and Kanada II (five images).

Identifying the transports

33Given how many series exist in the album, we may well wonder whether all the photographs do in fact show transports from Hungary. Other transports could have been photographed: during May-July 1944, major transports arrived on the ramp from Theresienstadt, Mechelen, and Drancy. Clearly, the transports that carried Lili Jacob and Esther Goldstein did indeed come from Hungary. In these cases, the sequences can be reconstructed using those they were able to identify, and these can in turn be associated with other images. Further visual elements let us establish when a transport came from Hungary, including writing on the sides of carriages naming the person in charge of each one: Kauffmann (?) Ferenc (image 10) and Visman Kalmán (image 95).

Close-up of photograph 10

Close-up of photograph 10

Close-up of photograph 95

Close-up of photograph 95

34The numbers show the wagon number (11) and the number of people in the wagons (71, 76).

35The stars on the chests of the new arrivals also show they come from Hungary. None of them bear the word “Juif,” “Jood,” or “Jude” in their center, which would indicate that they came from France, Belgium, the Netherlands, or Germany, for example. Nor are there any of the markings used in occupied Poland like armbands or stars on the back. [40] Instead, the arrivals wear extremely rudimentary and very different stars (images 40 and 67). These are cut haphazardly into rough shapes, some of them made with two inverted pieces of triangular cloth (image 112) or even by strips of cloth arranged to form a star (image 17). They are hastily or badly sewn (for instance, images 2, 64, and 79) and sometimes simply attached with safety pins. [41]

Close-up of photograph 17

Close-up of photograph 17

Close-up of photograph 112

Close-up of photograph 112

36All these elements fit with what happened during the Hungarian operation, which was carried out extremely quickly. Wearing the star was made compulsory by a decree on March 31, 1944, which required every Jew older than six to wear a yellow six-pointed star at least ten centimeters wide, made from cotton, silk, or velvet and attached to the left side of the chest. [42] These were not produced centrally according to a single model and then distributed, as in most other territories where this measure was imposed. In Hungary, stars were simply improvised to conform in some way to the law. Out of the album’s 192 photographs, only a few contain no visual information indicating that the transports came from Hungary.

37By contrast, it is impossible to date the images with any precision. The lists of “transports” from Hungary have not survived, and neither have any details about them (their composition, their place and time of departure, and so on). Even for those who can be identified in the photographs, the information collected by the International Tracing Service (ITS) is of little help, offering no specific dates but only periods (mid-May, May, early June, and so on). This reflects the chaos in which the Hungarian operation was carried out. The books of remembrance of the communities concerned, put together on the basis of documents and testimonies, give no further details about the departure of these transports. The only source that enables us to begin dating them is the “Kassa list,” which describes the Hungarian transports that passed through the city of Košice (in present day Slovakia). [43] This shows four transports coming from Beregszász, which passed through on 16, 18, 24, and 29 May. Jacob’s testimony indicates that hers was the transport of May 24, which according to the Kassa list would have arrived in Auschwitz on May 26, with 2,602 people on board. [44] For Goldstein’s transport, the list mentions only one from Técső, May 28, carrying 2,208 people. But up to 10,000 people lived in Técső’s ghetto, [45] and Yad Vashem states that the deportations were carried out between May 22 and May 26. [46] This shows how unreliable our sources are. The images of the two identified transports were taken in the last ten days of May. We can also infer that some were taken on a Sunday, the day of rest for those on labor details: prisoners are visible in BIId in the background of images 73, 74, and 91, as well as linen drying, indicating that this might be a rest day. [47] Assuming these pictures also date from May—and not June or July, when deportations from Hungary also took place—this could be Sunday, May 22 or 29, 1944.

Close-up of photograph 123

Close-up of photograph 123

Close-up of photograph 2

Close-up of photograph 2

Close-up of photograph 64

Close-up of photograph 64

Close-up of photograph 53

Close-up of photograph 53

38It is possible to reconstruct about a dozen series. Taking into account the number of transports photographed and the sites pictured, which are several kilometers apart, it becomes clear that the images were taken over the space of at least several days, and likely more. [48] The album is a mosaic of photographs made over an unknown period during spring and summer 1944, showing a broad range of operations at the camp. This goes against the typical understanding of the album as a coherent whole, made by a single photographer over the course of a single day—as reflected, for instance, in the title of one publication about the album: The Story of a Transport. [49]

Contrasting iconic photographs with historical reality

39Some photographs from the album have become the primary representation of the workings of the Final Solution at Auschwitz and beyond. Across the world, in museums, documentaries, and publications, they are now embodiments of the Holocaust. They have become iconic despite the fact that they were taken to demonstrate the quality of the work being done by the SS during the Hungarian operation. They do not show the reality of how transports were processed when they arrived at Auschwitz, but a reality, one staged by the SS for internal propaganda purposes. [50]

40Among the elements that are immediately visible when reading the images is the photographer’s position. Some were taken from the roof of the carriages, [51] and others from inside a carriage or from the steps leading up to an observation post. [52] In some cases, the photographer was perched on a trolley or the back of a truck, standing at different heights above the scene. [53] But, surprisingly, there are no shots taken from the central watchtower that looked out over the whole of the ramp, or from the other towers around the site the photographers were working in, whether on the ramp, in BIIc, or around KIV and KV. This was unlikely to be the result of restrictions on the photographer, as several of the photographs in the Bauleitung Album were taken from the central watchtower or one of the others. Was there a purely aesthetic preference here for images closer to the action?

41But there are also many photographs that were not taken during the operation itself, but instead expressly staged by the SS. This is the case for images 22 and 23, which are practically identical and were taken only a few seconds apart. The photographer positioned himself on the roof of a carriage, aiming to show how a selection began. To do so, operations were suspended while he took his photograph. We can see SS members on the ramp, waiting for the photographer to finish before continuing their activity. This was not the end of this pause, which lasted for a substantial amount of time: the photographer came down from the carriage and took a photograph (image 59) of the first rows of women and children queuing at the foot of the wagon he was perched on top of (visible from the back at the bottom of image 23). In this case, too, several photographs were presumably taken rather than just one.

Photograph 23

Photograph 23

42Image 59, which is frequently used to illustrate how selections worked, was entirely staged by the SS, just like images 22 and 23. Operations were interrupted for several minutes as the photographer climbed onto the roof (probably using the steps to the carriage’s observation post, which can be seen in the background of image 59), got into position, took a first series of photographs, climbed down the same way, crossed the fifteen or so meters between the steps to the observation box and the center of the ramp, and began taking photographs again, this time in close-up. This underscores that this project was an official one. Shooting interfered with operations, slowing them down at a time when more transports than ever were arriving at Auschwitz. Every day during this period, two to six transports arrived on the ramp from Hungary, alongside those from other countries.

Photograph 59

Photograph 59

43It becomes even clearer that the photograph is staged when we examine the people in it. Most of them (women and children, as well as the prisoner visible on the right) are looking directly at the photographer. There is nothing else happening at the time to draw their attention. Walter, or Hofmann, stands in front of them, ordering them to have their picture taken. We see another example of staging when we compare images 3 and 16.

44Image 3 shows an empty, “processed” train, with SS members in position to open the doors of another waiting train. The image is supposed to show the rhythm of the transports and the efficiency of the SS. But a comparison with image 16 makes it clear that this is staged. In image 16, unloading the Jews has only just begun, but the other train has already left the ramp and the property visible at the center of image 3 has been removed. Similarly, most of the waste visible by the empty cars has been cleaned up, a truck has parked in the upper part of this section of the ramp, and the SS are no longer visible, having been replaced by detainees from the Aufräumungskommando (the Kanada Kommando). [54] A substantial period of time has passed between these two images—perhaps as much as a quarter of an hour, the time it would have taken for all this to happen. The stance of the SS men preparing to open the carriage door in image photograph 3 makes no sense: the arrivals would have been unloaded before these operations were carried out. Image 3 was staged in order to pursue the theme of the album, which is efficiency. The three SS walking calmly in the foreground symbolize the calm in which the work is done. Once this shot was taken, the doors of the cars were left unopened. The ramp was cleared by prisoners from the Kanada Kommando, the empty transport left, and the truck drove onto the ramp. It was only afterwards that the next transport was opened up by the SS.

Photograph 3

Photograph 3

Photograph 16

Photograph 16

45We may also challenge the way in which representations have been anchored by some of these images. Survivors usually describe selections beginning with the women and children and then proceeding to the men, with those who got past it being immediately led “toward the camp.” This is shown by a number of the photographs, including image 27. But selection was far from a uniform, carefully controlled process, identical each time from transport to transport. The photographs show that the SS had more than just one way of organizing selections, despite what image 27 and others identical to it might lead us to think. In some cases the two lines—men in one, women and children in the other—were selected simultaneously. We see this in a series of images of men sent to the gas chamber, who were stopped by the photographer as they entered Strasse A. In image 111, as the men turned toward the photographer, a group of women and children entered the scene on the left; other women can be seen passing behind the group of men stopped in the background.

Photograph 27

Photograph 27

Photograph 111

Photograph 111

Photograph 68

Photograph 68

46The photographs also contradict the idea that those selected were immediately sent to the camp. Those selected can be seen waiting on the ramp in several of the images, contrary to common descriptions. This is the case for a group of women gathered on the Hauptstrasse (images 81, 82, 84 to 88, and 90) and for another group of men (images 42, 53/79, and 78). The selection can be seen continuing in the background. This is also the case for men who, having been selected, are waiting on the rails of track 2 (68 and 76), as well as during the selection for the transport from Tiachiv (Técső in Hungarian), which is visible in the background of image 35. This repetition shows that those selected often had to wait.

47Why are they waiting? We might assume operations were in progress in the area containing KIV and KV, either gassing the deportees or incinerating their bodies. Those sent to the Zentralsauna to be registered had to cross this area. But this does not hold for the series showing the Tiachiv transport, where those condemned to death are being sent toward the gas chambers in KII and KIII, along the extension to the ramp, while the selected men wait on the central tracks.

48Some of the photographs in the album do not align with typical representations, and so they are disregarded and supplanted by other images that resonate better with these. But some survivors’ accounts, including those collected from Hungarian survivors in 1945 by the DEGOB (National Relief Committee for Deportees), show, as much as the photographs do, that there were substantial variations in the selection procedure, and are extremely valuable in this respect. [55]

49There are many other examples of the influence of photographs in establishing inaccurate representations. But the representation that most distorts the reality of how the Final Solution was implemented at Auschwitz has to do with the way these images were made, and is inherent to them: as many survivors and camp staff testified, the vast majority of transports in 1942–4 arrived at night. The SS member Johann Paul Kremer, who was assigned to the ramp from September 1942, notes in his journal that selections on the ramp happened at night. [56] Simone Veil, Primo Levi, and Elie Wiesel, who were all deported in 1944 (from France, Italy, and Hungary, respectively), arrived at night. Both Rudolf Vrba, who was detailed to the Judenrampe, and Gedalia Ben-Zvi, another member of the Aufräumungskommando, described the work they had to do at night. When asked about it by Judge Halevi during the Eichmann trial, Ben-Zvi said that “most [transports] came at night, but in the peak period [i.e. the deportation of the Hungarian Jews], it was apparently both by day and by night. But, in most cases, the transports were directed so as to arrive at night.” [57]

50The reason for these nighttime arrivals undoubtedly lies in the very nature of Auschwitz—a complex site, of which the killing center was just one aspect. Whether on the Judenrampe or the new ramp (from 1944), unloading thousands of people and selection operations over several hours took place within a space where other activities were being performed, including those by detainees. [58] The arrival of a transport had a direct effect on the camp’s daily operation, forcing activities to be partly suspended so that the Final Solution could be pursued. This interruption is visible in a photograph showing men entering Strasse A. Tools have been left on the ground, suggesting that the detainees working on the Strasse A earthworks stopped work and returned to camp during the selection (image 69). The images show nothing of the activity of the various prisoner Kommandos who were forced to build the camp—which involved more than 11,000 prisoners by December 1943 [59]—because this work could not take place when the transports arrived, precisely where the prisoners moved around and worked. (By contrast, it is the subject of the Bauleitung Album.) But prisoners are visible at work in two images (27 and 33), digging the ditch that separated the Hauptstrasse from the ramp. Because they are in a trench they are physically isolated from operations on the ramp, and from the victims passing only a few meters away them on their way to KII and KIII.

51The photographs of the Auschwitz Album do not show the normal conditions in which transports arrived and selection took place. Above all, they reveal the way in which the SS at Auschwitz wanted to demonstrate to their superiors the quality of their own work, giving a deliberately sanitized picture of operations running as smoothly as the leaders of the Third Reich expected. They show an idealized version of the way the Final Solution was implemented at Auschwitz.