Auschwitz Erkennungsdienst

These portrait photographs of inmate Czesława Kwoka (attributed to Wilhelm Brasse) are among thousands taken by the Erkennungsdienst.
Woman and children walk toward the gas chamber, summer 1944. Part of the Auschwitz Album, taken by the Erkennungsdienst.[1]

In German-occupied Poland during World War II and the Holocaust, the Politische Abteilung Erkennungsdienst ("Political Department Identification Service")[2] in the Auschwitz concentration camp was a kommando of SS officers and prisoners who photographed camp events, visiting dignitaries, and building works on behalf of the camp's commandant, Rudolf Höss.[1]

The Erkennungsdienst also took photographs of inmates, including gassings, experiments, escape attempts, suicides,[3] and portraits of registered prisoners (those not immediately murdered in the gas chambers) when they first arrived at the camp.[4]

Led by its director, SS-Hauptscharführer Bernhard Walter, and deputy director, SS-Unterscharführer Ernst Hofmann,[5] the Erkennungsdienst took the 193 photographs that came to be known as the Auschwitz Album, which included images of Hungarian Jews in the summer of 1944 just before they were gassed.[1][6]

  1. ^ a b c Wontor-Cichy, Teresa (2012). "Erkennungsdienst—The Identification Service at Auschwitz". Wilhelm Brasse, Number 3444: Photographer, Auschwitz, 1940-1945. Krakow and Brighton: Sussex Academic Press. p. 14.
  2. ^ Lasik, Aleksander (2000). "Organizational Structure of Auschwitz Concentration Camp". In Długoborski, Wacław; Piper, Franciszek (eds.). Auschwitz, 1940–1945. Central Issues in the History of the Camp. Vol. I: The Establishment and Organization of the Camp. Oświęcim: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. p. 184 (145–279). ISBN 978-8385047872.
  3. ^ Wontor-Cichy 2012, pp. 11, 13.
  4. ^ Berkowitz, Michael (2007). The Crime of My Very Existence: Nazism and the Myth of Jewish Criminality. University of California Press. pp. 97, 268, n. 129.
  5. ^ Brasse, Wilhelm (2012). Wilhelm Brasse, Number 3444: Photographer, Auschwitz, 1940-1945. Krakow and Brighton: Sussex Academic Press. p. 42.
  6. ^ Struk, Janina (20 January 2005). "'I will never forget these scenes'". The Guardian.