Anna Radinsky/Entertainment Director
Photos created by Nazis of newly arrived Jewish people at the Auschwitz concentration camp returned home to Miami after being displayed in Israel for 30 years.
The exhibition opening of “Auschwitz-A Place on Earth: The Auschwitz Album” at the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU featured images of the only known documentation of Jews arriving at Auschwitz 75 years ago.
Auschwitz was the largest Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust where over 1 million men, women and children lost their lives.
The album showed no pictures of any violence or murder but nonetheless conveyed the implication that the subjects photographed would be soon facing their impending demise.
This photo shows men, women and children waiting to be processed before entering gas chambers. They have been separated from their friends and family at the train ramp and were deceived by being told that they had to take showers before they could be sent to work.
“These photos are remarkable because of the lack of evidence within concentration camps,” said Oren Baruch Stier, the Director of the FIU Holocaust and Genocide Studies Program.
The album showed the selection process of Jews when they arrived at the concentration camp, the separation of families and the lines made to the gas chambers.
It was rare for SS officers to be given permission to take photographs within the camps, according to Stier.
Alanna C. Barlow, a sophomore communications major, visited the museum after taking a Holocaust class with Stier.
Even though the photos do not reflect a narrative from the photographer’s point of view, she felt that the documentation of the process reflected the Nazis worldview of Jewish hatred.
“My theory is that the photographers were enjoying what they were doing and that they wanted to record the fruits of their labor,” said Barlow.
Nina Sandström, a costume designer for the Royal Swedish Opera, said that the photos didn’t look like they were taken by someone in uniform based on the expressions of the people in the photos.
“The cameraman could have been very short or the camera might have been put up on a stand,” Sandström said. “Also, the faces of the women and children look like they were thinking ‘Why are you taking pictures of me?’”
The quote says, “One of the bullies asked me whose child was standing next to me; my sister, who was standing close by, wanted to save me, and she said the child was hers. When I yelled out that the child was mine, I was beaten for lying. Then they took away my child, and my sister also went…” The quote was said by Batya Druckmacher, who was deported to Auschwitz from Poland in August 1944.
The reasoning behind why the photos were taken were never to be found.
Yet, the photos hold memories of people for many Auschwitz survivors who thought they would never see their families or friends again.
The album was accidentally found by Lilly Jacob-Zelmanovic Meier, who was 18-years-old when she was separated from her family while at a train ramp in Auschwitz.
She thought she would never see her family again until she found them in the album hundreds of miles away at the Dora concentration camp.
On the day of Dora’s liberation, Meier was sick with typhus in a German camp hospital. The day was cold, so she reached for a jacket that was near her bed. Under the jacket was the album.
Looking through it, she found pictures of herself, her parents and two brothers before she was forever separated from them.
After the war, Meier married another camp survivor and immigrated to Little Havana, Miami and took the album with her.
Meier kept the album until she donated it to the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem in 1980.
“When we look at these photos, we are standing in the same position as the people who took them,” said Stier.
The photos were used as evidence for people getting to Auschwitz and it showed the reality of the Holocaust.
“It’s hard to look at these images, but we need to,” said Stier.
The exhibit does not show the actual album that’s currently in Yad Vashem, but instead shows its contents, quotes and explanations of the album. The quote says, “Everyone was suspicious. They clearly felt that something was wrong… but no one in their worst nightmare could have imaged that within three or four hours they would be turned into ashes.” The quote was said by Filip Muller, who was deported to Auschwitz from Slovakia in April 1942.
The museum will be hosting a free film screening of “Made in Auschwitz: The Untold Story of Block 10” on Saturday, Jan. 11 from 8 p.m.-10 p.m. The documentary tells the story of over 400 women who were subjected to medical experimentation in Auschwitz by Carl Clauberg, a sadistic gynecologist.
There will be a free international symposium named “Auschwitz as Place: Past, Present, and Future” on Sunday, Jan. 12 from 12 p.m.-6 p.m. It will have experts examining the significance of the Auschwitz camp network, museum, a tourist destination and social media influence.
The museum is open Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. at 301 Washington Ave, Miami Beach, FL 33139. Free for museum members, FIU students, faculty and staff, $12 for adults, $8 for seniors and students, $24 for family. The exhibition runs until Mar. 1.
Photos taken by Anna Radinsky/PantherNOW
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