Auschwitz 21.6.1944

In January 2007, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received a donation of a photograph album. The inscription “Auschwitz 21.6.1944” on its first page signaled the uniqueness of the album—there are very few wartime photographs of the Auschwitz concentration camp complex, which included Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi killing center.

12) Amid the group stood Josef Mengele, the doctor who had conducted experiments on prisoners, often on children, and particularly on twins. pic.twitter.com/6vqtJ1XHTc

— McKay Smith (@McKayMSmith) October 17, 2019

Though his name does not appear anywhere in the album, the dates of the photographs and various decorations including adjutant cords on the uniform of the album’s owner, indicate that the album almost certainly belonged to and was created by SS-Obersturmführer Karl Höcker, the adjutant to the commandant of Auschwitz, SS-Sturmbannführer Richard Baer. Höcker was stationed at Auschwitz from May 1944 until the evacuation of the camp in January 1945.

14) At Auschwitz, he was often among the doctors on the ramp, the place where the trains stopped and the passengers were selected for death or for work, depending on the doctors’ impression of them. pic.twitter.com/StqR5SKxYd

— McKay Smith (@McKayMSmith) October 17, 2019

15) Prisoners sometimes called Mengele the Angel of Death, because being selected for his experiments meant at least not dying immediately. pic.twitter.com/Lt1oB4oQkB

— McKay Smith (@McKayMSmith) October 17, 2019