The Auschwitz Album, A Book Based Upon an Album Discovered by a Concentration Camp Survivor, Lili Meier – Text by Peter Hellman – Random House, New York – 1981
The Last Album, Eyes from the Ashes of Auschwitz-Birkenau – Ann Weiss – W.W. Norton & Company – New York, London – 2001
The Auschwitz Album & The Last Album are two books of photos centering on Auschwitz. The first book is of photos actually taken at Auschwitz-Birkenau in May 1944 as a report of the “processing” of a trainload of Jews from Hungary. The second book is of candid and studio photos of the families and friends of those Jews from Bendin, Poland, who in August 1943, carried these cherish photos, links to a past fading in the distance as a train of boxcars stuffed to suffocating with Jews, transported them to wherever the train was taking them. Together these two books – though very different in origin, purpose and intent – are two companion accounts of a murderous history, true, but much more, companion books witnessing to the existence, the trauma, and personhood of those destined for destruction – Shoah – by the originators and planners, of the great encompassing evil of the Holocaust.
I have read many books on the Holocaust, multiple histories and chronicles of the origin, events, and actions of the Nazis against the Jews during WWII, as well as multiple books dealing with specific topics of the Holocaust such as the Kindertransport – Jewish children near the beginning of the war allowed entrance to Great Britain, stories of children in hiding, the official Jewish chronicles of the Warsaw and Lodz ghettos, Eichmann, the operations of specific concentration camps, and the narratives of individuals witnessing to the particular horrors and evil they beheld and experienced. And the books written on the Holocaust, in all categories and languages, constitute a vast library, and yet when one considers the number of persons herded together and exterminated – six million – the witness of the voices, minds and life stories of those who perished that we possess, is actually very small compared to the number of those consigned to destruction. For yes, there were six million human stories in many tongues, from many nations, from all walks of life, of all ages, of men, women and children, and yet the total of their stories that we possess to learn from and regard as treasures beyond compare is miniscule.
However, these two books do add to the stories we possess, not in words, but in images, and separately and together, these two books add a living visual testimony to the lives of those swept away. In the first book, we are able to gaze upon the last hours of many and to the evil and brutal enslavement and delayed destruction of even more. The second book gives us images of life – vivid, full, loving, hopeful, tender and innocent, celebrated with fun, joyful weddings, and with events as warmly mundane as a meal with family and friends – the stuff, the elixir of life we all know. And here before us, on the pages of these books, are the God-given lives of those who lived and enjoyed the warmth of the sun and the hands and arms of family and friends upon them, before the evil of the Final Solution overtook them, the evil solution that designated their lives to extinction.
The Auschwitz Album – A Book Based Upon an Album Discovered by a Concentration Camp Survivor, as a book, is miraculous in its survival and every word of the introduction must be read to discover how the book ended up in “the bottom drawer of the dresser in the bedroom of a modest home in Miami”. This book is an official photo report of the arrival of a transport train delivering for “processing” more than two thousand Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz-Birkenau in May 1944. The German title of this entire photo essay is “Resettlement of Jews from Hungary”. The first section of photos is titled, “Arrival of a Transport” followed by sections labeled, “Selection”, “Men on Arrival”, “Women on Arrival”, “After the Selection, Still Able-bodied Men”, “Still Able-bodied Women”, and the most chilling section titled, “No Longer Able-bodied Women and Children”. In this section, in a photo of a group of women and children, the crematorium is in the background, and one woman in glasses stands tall and proud looking directly at the photographer, perhaps already knowing the destruction about to overtake them all, her look and critical appraisal of the photographer an accusation, and is now, a witness to us all. The last section titled simply “Birkenau”, the birch grove, the place of the gas chambers and crematoria, displays photos of no longer able-bodied men and women and the children from the selection process. They are merely waiting, perhaps waiting for promised and longed-for water, but, with or without the water, their thirst will soon end.
I believe all thinking, caring, persons should have a photo from this last section upon their desks, or in their study or prayer area, or even among family photos, to remember these persons, the men, the women, and especially the children. This could be a good way to ward off the evil of forgetting this oppression and murder, and to ward off the temptation to disregard, disdain, or view with simple but deep-seated contempt, individuals or groups of people – Jews, Blacks, Latinos, Muslims, immigrants, or adherents of other faiths or different political persuasions – the ultimate end of these secret attitudes and worldviews of hate, violence, and murder towards others, so amply, sadly and forcefully portrayed within the pages of this book. For these photos are the result of words, evil words, that took root and then flourished in individual and collective human hearts and minds, of those who had turned from God, and who have ceased to love their neighbor as themselves, yea, have ceased to consider others even as human, as persons created in the image and likeness of God.
The Last Album, Eyes from the Ashes of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the second book, is such a fitting companion to the first. Essentially all photos of those arriving at Auschwitz were taken from them and destroyed, part of the process of not only destroying their lives and communities, but also all memory and traces of their existence. For most entering Auschwitz-Birkenau, this savage assault upon hundreds of thousands of those transported to the death camp, was hugely successful, for few escaped death, and most in their physical destruction, also suffered the loss of the memory, meaning, and significance of their life to others. Their lives were erased, all evidence of their existence obliterated. However, for at least a thousand or so, the memory of their lives escaped destruction when an underground network of Jewish inmates at Auschwitz decided, at great personal peril to their lives, to preserve as many of the photos from this one transport of Jews from Bedin, Hungary.
These photos were secreted away by the Jewish workers at Auschwitz as a testimony of the lives perishing in the gas chambers, an attempt to preserve the remaining witness of the existence and lives of at least a few of the hundreds of thousands who perished in Auschwitz. The photos record everyday life, the life that we sometimes take for granted. Included among the pages are formal photos taken in studios of engagements, weddings, and well-dressed young men, and photos taken by the hands of those who loved the subjects of the camera – a piano player, a naked little baby on the proverbial furry rug, head up, looking with interest to the horizon of his world, however limited it was at that moment, all photos taken to have and to hold, and in Auschwitz, literally till enslavement and death separated them from those in whose hands these photos were cherished.
But also within the images of this book, we can learn anew the value and preciousness of every day of our lives, as the days of these individuals ended early, abruptly, and cruelly, persons whose very existence would not have been honored or even known, except for these photos carried and hidden away by inmates of Auschwitz at the risk of their own lives – another facet of the witness of this book, the story of the brave and visionary individuals who hid these photos, whose names and faces we will never know with any certainty, for in a book of many photos, we have none of them.
Many of these photos record life a decade or more before the war and reveal the oneness of the human life we all share. And because of this, every word of the book should be read, every photo pondered over and studied and even meditated upon. For after reading the book, after the last page is turned, if someone were to ask if you recognized anyone in the book, perhaps as a joke, you and others of good heart would be able to answer in truth, “I recognized them all.” For in truth you should have, for they are all as our fathers and mothers, beloved sons and daughters, grandparents, and fussy aunts and overeating uncles, and sisters and brothers and well-loved friends, and lovers and neighbors, and precious children, and wonderful nieces and nephews, and cousins with whom we learned of family and life. And, through all of them, we should have also deeply recognized ourselves on each and every page.
***
To view all the book reviews in the Books Read, Thoughts Upon Them subcategory, please use the link below.
Books Read, Thoughts Upon Them – Writing In The Shade Of Trees
Man’s brutality and inhumanity to his fellow man is beyond embarrassment, and I am deeply ashamed to know that I am connected to a species that can be so selfish, cruel, and evil. I have seen my own weakness and susceptibility to displace my anger on innocent lives. I know too, that I am vulnerable to impulses for revenge, and have seen myself blinded by hatred. I do not have the answers, but I recognize my bond to all living things, and can only hope and strive to bring more joy than harm into this world.