In June 2024, we received an important historical item documenting the arrival of the first German soldiers to the town of Oświęcim, and the first groups of Jews who were captured for forced labor in logging and transportation, as well as the initial preparations for establishing the infamous camp.
It concerns a private photo album of a German soldier who was conscripted into the German army on August 26, 1939, a month before the Nazi invasion of Poland. The album documents the conquest of Polish fortifications, the takeover of Polish towns by Nazi soldiers, the early stages of the persecution of Jews in Poland—Jews who were forced into labor, rare photographs of the occupation of Oświęcim, the preparation of the area for the construction of the Auschwitz extermination camp by Jews, mass graves of Polish victims murdered by the Nazis upon their occupation of Auschwitz, and more.
The Album
The album was kept in a private home for years, dating back to the 1940s. In the album, 122 photographs are glued to its pages. All the photographs are described within the album itself and appear in chronological order.The first photographs document “My Military Service from August 26, 1939″—the day of his enlistment in the German army. Subsequently, there are photographs of Nazi recruits in Vienna alongside trains transporting them to the front. The Nazi soldiers are then seen arriving in Myslowice in southern Poland, followed by photographs of them in Kraków, the destruction of Polish fighter planes, and the takeover of several towns in Poland.
The second part of the album is the most significant and horrifying. It contains previously unknown photographs of the first groups of Jews captured by the Nazis in the Kraków area and forced into labor. The photographs depict Jews in full Eastern European attire, young and old, with shovels in their hands in a clearing after being ordered to chop wood, while Nazi soldiers stand beside them. In one of the photographs, a Jewish forced laborer is seen next to a Nazi soldier with a cigarette in his mouth, smiling and looking directly at the camera. This series of photographs is described in German as “Juden bei Zwangsarbeit”—”Jews in forced labor.”
Further on, there are photographs of the Wehrmacht in Kraków’s Jewish market, the ruins of Kraków, and the Nazi takeover of Polish fortifications. This is followed by a group of photographs documenting the entry of German forces into the town of Oświęcim, about 50 kilometers west of Kraków, showing the destruction of bridges and the clearing of land for what would later become the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. At this stage of the war, the area of Oświęcim was designated for the establishment of “Lebensraum” (Living Space) as part of the immediate steps toward the “Aryanization” of the region. From the outset, the Nazis intended to settle ethnic Germans in place of the fleeing Poles.
The photographs in the album are the earliest known images documenting the occupation of the area by SS soldiers and the initial preparations for the site where approximately 1.2 million people were murdered, including about 1.1 million Jews—the Auschwitz death camp. The photographs show trucks transporting SS soldiers to the Auschwitz area. One of the documented captions reads: “Gesprengte Brücke in Oswiecim”—”Blown-up bridge in Oświęcim.” At this stage, the Nazis had already murdered about 15,000 members of the Polish intelligentsia in the area, executing them according to a pre-prepared list. One of the photographs is described as “poln. Massergrab in Rajsko”—”Polish mass grave in Rajsko.” (The Polish town of Rajsko was actually a village in the administrative district of Oświęcim, located about 7 km southwest of Oświęcim and 55 km west of the regional capital, Kraków). Alongside these photographs, German soldiers are seen securing the area on trucks, with the caption: “Razzia in Gefangenen – Lager zu Oswiecim”—”Auschwitz, raid on prisoners.” In this series of photographs, Jews are seen performing forced labor, as well as Jewish children looking out of a window directly at the Nazi soldier’s camera. The photographs in the final section of the album depict Nazi soldiers going on recreational outings in the mountainous areas near the occupied towns.
Auschwitz Concentration and Extermination Camp
The Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp in southern Poland was the largest of the death camps established by Nazi Germany during World War II. Approximately 1.2 million people were murdered there, including about 1.1 million Jews—more than in any other location during the war. It was the extermination camp that operated for the longest period (from June 1940 to January 1945) among all the death camps, reaching the peak of mass murder industrialization. At its height, Auschwitz was a vast complex comprising 45 camps, spanning 40 square kilometers. The Auschwitz camps were located near the Polish city of Oświęcim (in German, Auschwitz), in southern Poland, about 50 km west of Kraków and approximately 290 km south of Warsaw. During World War II, in addition to serving as a concentration, labor, and extermination camp, the city of Auschwitz was intended to function as part of the Nazi utopian vision for German settlement in the East. Heinrich Himmler’s architects designed Auschwitz as a “model city,” a prototype for German settlement in the East, as part of the Nazi ideology regarding the role of Eastern Europe in German history.
The reason the Germans specifically chose the city of Oświęcim in occupied Poland as the site for the planned camp was due to its strategic location and the presence of existing structures that had previously served as barracks for the Polish army. During May 1940, the first prisoners—primarily Polish political prisoners—were brought to the site and forced to work under harsh conditions to prepare the first buildings of the camp. Gradually, the camp expanded, with the addition of electrified barbed wire fences, guard towers, and additional housing structures. In June 1940, the first official transport of prisoners arrived, marking the beginning of the camp’s operation.
See dynasty auction no. 26, Item 90
