Holocaust Photos--Warning: Disturbing Content

[EKman]

David,

Thanks for your interest. Here is the text from the reverse of the photo you asked about:

"One of the further set of pictures of the Belsen COncentration camp, where British troops, who entered the camp on April 15th, found 60,000 men, women, and children dying of starvation and disease. SS Guards both men and women, are now being forced at bayonet point to cart away and bury the thousands of victims they slowly tortured to death.

Picture shows: Some of the SS women whose bestiality and brutality was equal to that of their male colleagues."

The photo is dated 2/4/45.

Hi EKman

Thanks for posting the photos: they are great if somewhat disturbing . I find number 4, the one with the women, quite interesting. Were these women female SS concentration camp guards? The expressions on each of their faces couldn't be more different: a mixture of defiance, bemusement, alarm and as such are very revealing.

I would be interested in any information you might be willing to share.

Thanks.

David

And well done again on a great thread

[EKman]

Hi.

It seems that the pictures are taken in Bergen-Belsen?

Derek

Derek,

Some of them were taken there, yes. I am going to have to do a little more research, and perhaps some forum members viewing this thread can help, as to identifying the location of the privately taken photos. The press photos all indicate the location and many of them were indeed taken at Belsen as you say.

[PZIV]

You know so many things come to mind when I see this. First I just hate to see this horrible side of things. The people who would take real pleasure in this are sick. Absolutely sick.

That being said, I just hate to turn the other cheek at the small "revenge" they were treated to. Now I will say yes to jail sentences, yes to life in prison, yes to death penalty in some cases. I think it is a great idea to make them bury the people they helped murder, but there are some things I just can't see.

"The man who ran the camp. They sure done a job on him he was cut to peices"

I hope they do not literally mean cut to peices? Death penalty for the camp leader is not out of the question, but do we have to torture the torturers?

I have been told by a friend who interviewed a 45th Division US vet that there was a "10 minute mayhem" or "10 minutes of madness" in which any German who was found was killed.

I obviously have never and will never see the true horrors one would unveil once entering such a site, but this is how I feel.

Some might criticize me or say "an eye for an eye" here, but I feel a bit differently.

"An eye for an eye and the whole world is blind." - Ghandi

[Scott Powell]

You know so many things come to mind when I see this. First I just hate to see this horrible side of things. The people who would take real pleasure in this are sick. Absolutely sick.

That being said, I just hate to turn the other cheek at the small "revenge" they were treated to. Now I will say yes to jail sentences, yes to life in prison, yes to death penalty in some cases. I think it is a great idea to make them bury the people they helped murder, but there are some things I just can't see.

"The man who ran the camp. They sure done a job on him he was cut to peices"

I hope they do not literally mean cut to peices? Death penalty for the camp leader is not out of the question, but do we have to torture the torturers?

I have been told by a friend who interviewed a 45th Division US vet that there was a "10 minute mayhem" or "10 minutes of madness" in which any German who was found was killed.

I obviously have never and will never see the true horrors one would unveil once entering such a site, but this is how I feel.

Some might criticize me or say "an eye for an eye" here, but I feel a bit differently.

"An eye for an eye and the whole world is blind." - Ghandi

you're just trolling. fark off

[Gregory Koepp]

you know dead people look the same, in WW1 or WW2 or Iraq just the places are differant.

these photos and all like them should all be saved and shown every now and then, then people will really understand why we fight for the rights of other people and places, I think those Camp Women in the photo are the uglyest women i have ever seen! they needed to striped and beat by the poor captives on the camps. (they sure were not inmates)

if i was there i would have made them wash everyone of the dead before wrapping them up and laid to peace!!!
I have some like these and will post if you like, but it is weard that human nature is strange, I mean that because even though there are warnings and disturbing photos people want to see what can and does happen to others by others?? call it morbid or sick but we are trained by our suroundings everyday, like look at the best Video games out there, they are War type games and fighting/killing. so when this is done to live or expired men/women people get surprised? why?? look at our TV shows, best ones out there are dealing in death: Law and Order/CSI/24/Miami CSI/History Channel/ ETC-ETC...
Hard to look at but you catch yourself looking closer??

so ya these should be kept and shown every now and then, because there will be a day when they are examamed with photos of our next War.

I'm not making a political statment, it just came to me as it does when I watch the Night time New's.

Gregory Koepp

[PZIV]

you're just trolling. fark off

[EKman]

you know dead people look the same, in WW1 or WW2 or Iraq just the places are differant.

these photos and all like them should all be saved and shown every now and then, then people will really understand why we fight for the rights of other people and places, I think those Camp Women in the photo are the uglyest women i have ever seen! they needed to striped and beat by the poor captives on the camps. (they sure were not inmates)

if i was there i would have made them wash everyone of the dead before wrapping them up and laid to peace!!!
I have some like these and will post if you like, but it is weard that human nature is strange, I mean that because even though there are warnings and disturbing photos people want to see what can and does happen to others by others?? call it morbid or sick but we are trained by our suroundings everyday, like look at the best Video games out there, they are War type games and fighting/killing. so when this is done to live or expired men/women people get surprised? why?? look at our TV shows, best ones out there are dealing in death: Law and Order/CSI/24/Miami CSI/History Channel/ ETC-ETC...
Hard to look at but you catch yourself looking closer??

so ya these should be kept and shown every now and then, because there will be a day when they are examamed with photos of our next War.

I'm not making a political statment, it just came to me as it does when I watch the Night time New's.

Gregory Koepp

Gregory,

I agree fully. Some collectors frown on having these types of items and I can understand that sentiment. However, I feel that images like these provide a healthy balance for the rest of the stuff--Iron Crosses, Uniforms, Helmets... Those things, to us, represent heroism, sacrifice, national pride, and all of the good things that can be said about the common German soldier. But it is important that we temper that with the reminder that this was a part of the war as well and that these people are every bit as much casualties as soldiers who died at <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:State w:st="on">Normandy</st1:State>, Stalingrad, <st1:City w:st="on">Cassino</st1:City>... As you say, there is certianly an element of morbid fascination that we all have to admit to in these and similar photos but I hope that among the company we keep here at WAF, we'd recognize a far more poignant reason to be interested in, preserve, and occasionally examine these pictures. <O</O
<O</O
Also, if you don't mind, I would very much appreciate seeing the photos that you mention. If you would care to append them to this thread, I invite you to do so.<O</O
<O</O
Thank you,<O</O
<O</O
Chris<O</O

[Von Hoth]

You know so many things come to mind when I see this. First I just hate to see this horrible side of things. The people who would take real pleasure in this are sick. Absolutely sick.

I have studied WWII at the university level for a while now such as at FSU where I did senior seminars in WWII and the people that were in it................ and there are relatively few examples of camp participants who actually took pleasure in hurting people. The majority were ordinary people, that is the most frightening aspect of it.

That being said, it is hard to imagine how this madness would benefit anyone? It is somewhat of a mystery that during the fall of the reich, they took so much resources to keep sending trains of jews to the camps. It is also a mystery that the members of the Wannsee Conference were made up of 4 or 5 of the top university professors of all of Europe. These men had phD's and were supposed to carry with them moral judgement and yet the let the cold hand of Himmler's SS infect them all and bring down the entire German People.

[Jonathan M]

You know so many things come to mind when I see this. First I just hate to see this horrible side of things. The people who would take real pleasure in this are sick. Absolutely sick.

That being said, I just hate to turn the other cheek at the small "revenge" they were treated to. Now I will say yes to jail sentences, yes to life in prison, yes to death penalty in some cases. I think it is a great idea to make them bury the people they helped murder, but there are some things I just can't see.

"The man who ran the camp. They sure done a job on him he was cut to peices"

I hope they do not literally mean cut to peices? Death penalty for the camp leader is not out of the question, but do we have to torture the torturers?

I have been told by a friend who interviewed a 45th Division US vet that there was a "10 minute mayhem" or "10 minutes of madness" in which any German who was found was killed.

I obviously have never and will never see the true horrors one would unveil once entering such a site, but this is how I feel.

Some might criticize me or say "an eye for an eye" here, but I feel a bit differently.

"An eye for an eye and the whole world is blind." - Ghandi

RE: "10 minutes of mayhem"
it is impossible for any of us here to even begin to try and understand what inmates and their liberators must have been feeling/going through at the time. i assume that these gut, instinctive reactions were to be expected. to be honest, the SS men and women responsible should have ALL been executed in the same manner and fashion as their victims were.

in terms of the hobby i feel holocaust items should be in the public domain as far as possible to educate. i also studied this to degree level and one of our tasks was to try and explain why people would carry out such orders and then have the gall to justify them, it was an eye opening experience answering that question and going through a mass of primary material.

so in that respect i differ with you, an eye for an eye is only the beginning with those responsible.

[Jonathan M]

I have studied WWII at the university level for a while now such as at FSU where I did senior seminars in WWII and the people that were in it................ and there are relatively few examples of camp participants who actually took pleasure in hurting people. The majority were ordinary people, that is the most frightening aspect of it.

That being said, it is hard to imagine how this madness would benefit anyone? It is somewhat of a mystery that during the fall of the reich, they took so much resources to keep sending trains of jews to the camps. It is also a mystery that the members of the Wannsee Conference were made up of 4 or 5 of the top university professors of all of Europe. These men had phD's and were supposed to carry with them moral judgement and yet the let the cold hand of Himmler's SS infect them all and bring down the entire German People.

my answer has been that as intellectuals they took advantage to practice their twisted theories, moral judgement casually and conveniantly set aside

[Ron Weinand]

A couple of the photos appear to be from Gardelegen in Germany. This was a "barn" that contained a little over 1100 displaced workers (mostly Poles and eastern people) who were closed in the large windowless building and set on fire. These were not the type of starved concentration camp prisoner you see in the Belsen photos, but rather a slave worker type and the death was mainly caused by lack of oxygen.
I know this well because my father was one attached to the medical unit who found this place while the bodies were still smoking and photographed it. Many of his photos have appeared in post war magazines as he was in a medical outfit and developed the photos at the X-Ray in the 113th evac hospital. I have had his scrapbook for as long as I remember and this incident was etched into my mind along with his article that appeared in our town newspaper in 1945. His personal description of the incident and his impression of the Germans who committed this act was very moving to me and was detailed in the paper. A truly eye opening event in my younger years.
Ron Weinand
Weinand Militaria

[Anthony N]

Thanks for posting those pictures. Disturbing but very important historical photographs. The picture of the female camp guards faces is incredible. These pictures need to be saved so as to try & help guard against it happening again.

Unfortunately it has happened again, but fortunately it was stopped by the UN before it got to those horrific stages in the former Yugoslavia. That's why i think it's so important that people see these kind of photos to try & help guard against it happening once more.
Ant.

[Richard]

As disturbing as these pictures are, their primary focus should be to let us know that there is a dark side to all of humanity. Most of the guards, as has been mentioned, were not people that were sadistic or cruel to begin with. Outside of the prison environment they were mostly good fathers, husbands, sons, brothers and neighbors. But this type of environment brings out a dark side most of us have in us. When allowed to go unrestrained, it can lead to disastrous consequences. Witness the Stanford prison experiment in 1971 composed of ordinary students who were psychologically tested to weed out the "abnormal" (i.e. sadistic, twisted, psychotic and so forth).

http://www.prisonexp.org/legnews.htm

This brings to light a fearful side of human nature that of which we are all probably capable given the right circumstances. It is fine to say "I would never think of participating in this" but did not the world participate in one way or another in this and other atrocities during history by merely remaining silent and inactive until the end? Would history have been different if a few men of rank had not created the "final solution" and the camp guards merely consigned to military duty? Would their personalities, actions and behaviors have been different with another assignment? I think so.

I truly believe that like the Stanford experiment, these people were given a task that brought out something in them that would never have surfaced in other circumstances. Simon Wiesenthal, in a book he had written, described an episode where he and an SS guard were laying in a meadow talking and described the guard (albeit he said it was the exception rather than the rule) as a nice man. This shows that not all SS were evil incarnate. Most probably did not have this attitude until they were placed into the circumstances that allowed the dark side that lies within us all to surface.

The world itself is partly culpable in the entire history of horror. I guarantee that knowledge of what was going on was not lacking in Allies ranks, especially when you get to the areas of intelligence. How can you keep this from the world until 1945 and yet discover so many other "secrets" of the enemy that were much more hidden and obscure.

Most of those deported in those years put up little or no resistance. There was no mass exodus in numbers that might be expected. It is as if many were resigned to their fate. Could they themselves be considered culpable in their own fate by not resisting to the death even though most realized that would be the ultimate end of their journey? Why would you reluctantly go, rather than resist and wind up with a quick and less tortuous death? Witness the incidents of 9/11 where, when they realized they were going to die anyway, the passengers of the plane that crashed in the field resisted even though they knew it would end in death for themselves.

The camps in Germany were mirrored to a rough extent in Russia under Stalin, yet again the world did nothing. We have witnessed this time and again into modern times with the Hutus and Tutsis in Africa, Bosnia and ethnic cleansing and countless suffering the world over time and again.

I think we must really reflect upon ourselves and realize that by just saying "never again" it doesn't guarantee this type of horror will not surface in modern times. History has proven that. The world needs to be much more vocal and active to prevent these types of horrors from recurring. Unless we all realize that, given the right circumstances and power that goes unchecked, these things will continue. The scale might not be as large, but it will happen and has many times since the war ended.

It is easy to point the finger at Germany in general and the guards in particular as they were the facilitators. But were not the people in the rest of the world the enablers? And does that not continue still?
Richard V

[Bullwyf]

Holocaust Photos

With showing a dead person and comment it with "This is a good german" you
disqualify yourself.

[Anthony N]

With showing a dead person and comment it with "This is a good german" you
disqualify yourself.

I am sure this wasn't a comment from EK man, but what he found written on the back of the photo.
Ant