The Auschwitz album: story of a death factory: Hitler's "final solution of the Jewish question" sent millions to extermination in this installation's gas chambers and crematoriums

ON THE DAY U.S. forces liberated Dora-Mittlebau concentration camp, a prisoner named Lili Jacob--ill with typhus and searching for some warm clothes--came upon a photo album hidden in an SS barracks cupboard. When she opened it, she discovered pictures depicting the arrival of a transport of Hungarian Jews at the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp. To Jacob's horror and amazement, images of her family, friends, and herself were included in the album. She had been a prisoner at Auschwitz from May to December of 1944 before being transferred to Dora-Mittlebau in 1945. In 1980, Jacob donated the album detailing "The Death Factory" to Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority in Israel. The photographs have been reassembled, restored, and duplicated for this exhibition.

"The Auschwitz Album: The Story of a Transport" includes nearly 40 black-and-white photographic reproductions that document the arrival and imprisonment of 3,500 Hungarian Jews in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland. These powerful images, taken by Nazi SS officers in May 1944, are the only visual evidence of what took place inside this infamous death camp. The exhibition, created in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. presents photos documenting the unloading of the overcrowded trains, the selection process for slave labor or death in the gas chambers, the confiscation of property, and the preparations for extermination.

An Auschwitz survivor recorded the horror experienced during his days at the death camp: "The gas chambers operated without interruption, day and night. A pillar of living flame erupted from the chimneys of Auschwitz and was borne aloft along with a dense cloud of smoke. The crematoria, packed beyond their capacity, exploded and one of the chimneys was demolished. However, the labor of killing knew no respite. The [extermination] department at the country house at Bunker 2, which had been neglected since 1942, was reopened. Huge pits were excavated and they burned the corpses there. Many witnesses describe the cremation of living children in the pits of Birkenau."

Historians estimate that as many as 1,500.000,000 people perished at Auschwitz during its five years of operation. An overwhelming majority of them--l,350,000--were Jews. Poles comprised the second largest group (7075,000 victims)--and the third largest segment (some 20,000) was made up of Gypsies. In addition, nearly 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war and 10-15.000 prisoners of other nationalities (Czechs. Belorussians, Yugoslavs. Germans, French, Austrians, etc.) died at Auschwitz.

The Auschwitz concentration camp was built by the Nazis in 1940, in the suburbs of Oswiecim, Poland, which, like other parts of the country, was occupied by the Germans during World War II. Auschwitz was the largest of the death camps and one of four established in Poland. The Germans picked the location because of its convenient transportation connections and since it was secluded and easy to camouflage. In its early years, the camp was a site of methodical killing of political prisoners--chiefly by means of starvation. inhuman housing conditions, hard labor, medical experiments, beatings, and executions.

Over time, the camp was expanded and consisted of three main parts: Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II-Birkenau. and Auschwitz III-Monowitz. It also contained more than 40 sub-camps. Beginning in 1942, Auschwitz became

the site of the greatest mass murder in the history of humanity, committed against the European Jews, as part of Adolf Hitler's plan for the complete destruction of these people, his dreaded "Final Solution of the Jewish Question."

The Jews were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in cattle wagons. Upon arrival, the selection process began as they were inspected by SS doctors or other camp functionaries participating in the selection process. One of the most fundamental criteria of selection was age. As a role, all children under 16 and the elderly were condemned to death. In 1944, the age limit was lowered to 14. Depending on the composition of a given transport group, up to 50% (and an average of 20%) were selected for work. They were brought to the camp, registered as prisoners, and tattooed with camp serial numbers on their arms. Out of some 1,100,000 Jews deported to the camp, only 200,000 were selected for work. The remaining 900,000 were exterminated.

Those selected for death were escorted by SS men to the gas chambers. The people were told they would be placed in a camp, but first had to be disinfected and washed. After undressing, the victims were led to a gas chamber, the doors were locked, and the poison gas Zyklon B was released. Jewish prisoners were forced to remove the bodies from the gas chamber, cut off the women's hair, and remove all precious metals from dental work and jewelry. The bodies were incinerated in pits, on pyres, or in huge crematoriums. The largest, Crematorium II, had the ability to incinerate more than 1,400 bodies every 24 hours. In total, the four crematoria could incinerate 4,416 individuals in a single day. More than 1,600,000 prisoners were cremated in these installations per year.