This grim WW2 artefact is a stark reminder of Nazi depravity

Link to my long form video on this topic:

In 2007, an unnamed American veteran donated a photo album he came into possession of at the end of WW2.

The album contains a series of photographs collected by SS officer Karl-Friedrich Höcker depicting the everyday lives of Auschwitz-Birkenau officers and staff enjoying some rest and relaxation at a resort 30km south of the death camps.

The Nazis are shown laughing, singing and generally having a good time. In one photo, a group of women are pictured feigning sadness because their blueberries are finished.

What makes these photos so chilling is the fact that just a stone's throw away, hundreds of thousands of Jews, mostly Hungarian, were being systematically exterminated.

Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death, is shown in 8 photos, and the discory of the album was the first photographic evidence of his presence at the infamous Nazi death camps.

The album gives shocking insight into the state of mind of Nazi administrators and how they were able to participate in some of the worst atrocities in world history, yet lived out their lives happily - seemingly oblivious to the evil they were participating in.

#giveityourbestshort #historyshorts

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[attackpatterndelta]

There’s a book published called The Good Old Days which contains letters written by the Officers and Soldiers who ran the death camps, to their families. They are full of really mundane, everyday comments which are incredibly chilling to read given what was taking place in the camps.

[fnmag]

It’s interesting how the same things are going on now. For those in power

[rodneycampbell]

How it starts is by those in positions of power dehumanizing those they do not like. They turn them into enemies of the state. Everything just escalates from there, sometimes gradually, sometimes overnight.

[DanBoy]

As bad as this is, let's not forget that Stalin and his merry band of commies were just as bad 😔

[pamneel]

They used to have tours of the death camps for the local German people. A film showed well- dressed men & women, who held cloths over their noses, as they looked at skelletal people working in the camps. I watched a program that was filmed by American GI's after the prisoners were rescued, for Hitchcock. I just cried throughout the documentary. There were HUGE piles of hair, glasses & dentures taken from the prisoners. Imagine the local Germans, who lived near the camps, could smell the ovens going day & night. How evil can people be? And some people believe the holocaust never happened...

[kathleenboggan]

Reasons to NEVER NEVER NEVER trust your government.

[johndelong]

All humans are capable of this, and worse.
The heart is decietful and desperately wicked.

[tonykelly]

I have never been able to understand how one group of humans can be persuaded to bestow such hatred upon another group of humans.

[richardzak]

Especially today, don't forget recent history, it's showing its face AGAIN.

[blewis]

The famous term “the banality of evil “comes to mind…

[Michael_Binkley]

Power flows from the bottom up, quit being "chilled" and letting fear rise to do it again.

If history has taught me anything, it's that most people don't read history.

[Dickiemiller]

It always seems like such a juxtaposition to see that the death camp guards are fairly normal people. I think that's the scariest thing about them, they were normal people.

[chadwedul]

I think pbs had a program on this photo album.

[georgedunn]

An extreme example, but pretty much all persecutors can do that; that is, compartmentalize their "duty" from their "real" lives, as though the former were merely a role in a play and nobody was actually hurt.

[DAda-nvro]

It’s made it a lot easier to understand how atrocities like this are allowed to happen & participated in by seemingly normal people through propaganda, after living through the last 2 years

[delorisvannoy]

My father was in the army in WW11 . He brought back pictures of one of the camps that they liberated. It was beyond horrible!

[RicardoRodriguez-ceqg]

And it sill happening now by the powerful Elite.

[AdrianSlate]

They look so normal & hospitable,

Until you put a *_Jew_* infront of them.

[galphadavenport]

They knew what Evil they were doing. 👹

[barrykennethdaniel]

I'm of German heritage but I'm so very ashamed of this historical truth