Auschwitz prisoner/photographer Wilhelm Brasse

<p>Mr. Brasse died at age 94 this week. Here is an article and a few of his Auschwitz photos:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2224026/The-photographer-Auschwitz-Man-forced-chilling-images-Jewish-prisoners-haunted-death-94.html?ICO=most_read_module">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2224026/The-photographer-Auschwitz-Man-forced-chilling-images-Jewish-prisoners-haunted-death-94.html?ICO=most_read_module</a></p>

<p>Thank you for providing photos, the information and the sad story.</p>

<p>I believe recently there was another post that contained links to thousands of photographs taken in the concentration/extermination camp. Not sure if it was on Photo.net or other Internet place(?).</p>

<p>I visited the Auschwitz that is now a museum, as a kid many years ago. That experience hunted me for years. With recent summer trip to Krakow, I was not brave enough to visit Auschwitz again, though one of my uncles perished there. When in Krakow, I met many tourists from Israel, as well as from other countries, including many from Asia.</p>

<p>I believe high school graduates from Israel visit the place annually. </p>

<p>What a horrific assignment I could not have handled that, no wonder he was haunted for his entire life, it's so far beyond normal comprehension what went on there and such a short time ago.</p>

<p>Thank you for posting this, Bob. Brasse seems like a sensitive, brave man. What an awful thing he had to do.<br>

Such news always makes me think of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Vishniac" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Roman Vishniac</a> who set out to photograph children in East European ghettos during the 1930s, because he wanted to record a life which he knew would not last. Much later, his photos were published in a book <em>Children of a Vanished World</em>. Vishniac often photographed surreptitiously, with his camera under his coat, in which he had made a small hole. He controlled the shutter with a cable release that had the button end in his pocket. He used a Leica, sometimes a Rolleiflex. It is amazing to me that he was able to do this. Some of the photos in the book, understandably, are not as sharp as some others made with the same glass, but the record they created is important.<br>

Frank, about 17 years ago, I was in Munich, very near to the Dachau memorial, at the site of the concentration camp, attending an engineering conference. I had the time after the conference ended, but couldn't bring myself to go, even though my great-grandparents were killed by the Nazis, probably where they lived in the Ukraine. We also lost members of my family in concentration camps in Argentina during the military dictatorship that controlled the country from 1976 until 1983. For some reason I was able to go see the horror. Last year, I visited a memorial at the site of one of the worst camps, and found all the names of those we lost on a memorial wall there. It was<br>

My wife's uncle, Malcolm McClain, was part of a U.S. Army infantry unit that liberated one of the camps as they fought their way into Germany. He was able to function as a soldier despite both what he saw at the camp and the horror of being at the front, earned a Bronze Star and a battlefield commission, but after the war it took him many years to recover.</p>

<p>My mother is 83 and has begun talking to my daughters about some of her experiences as a teenager in London during the blitz. Her father was a Polish Jew. These photos are mesmorizing. Nazis, or otherwise, it boggles the mind how men can act with such hatred and viciousness toward other human beings, and inconceivable to me how some can brutalize a woman or child. </p>

<p><strong>My mother is 83 and has begun talking to my daughters about some of her experiences as a teenager in London during the blitz.</strong><br>

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Gup I am staying with my Gran at the moment she is 96, It's fascinating to listen to these stories, she has a great memory better than mine, not kidding. She is also a Londoner and was telling me the other night about the V1's falling on her neighbourhood and sheltering behind blast walls during bombings.</p>

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<p>Simon, that photo is a beautiful tribute. My Mum said they would hurry down into the tube everynight after the trains stopped running and 'camp' down there for the night. She actually met my Dad during the evacuation when all the kids were sent out to the country to be billetted at rural farms and homes. They were 12 and 13.<br>

Thanks for this thread, Bob. It's so important that people be reminded of these outrageous deeds and the bravery of those that survived it.</p>

<p>Thanks Gup, yes many people did shelter down the Tube, my local station had a plaque on the wall reminding haw many people had died during a raid when a bomb hit the water mains and may people drowned. A lot of people had Anderson shelters in their gardens, I know my other grandparents did, it was a like a brick hut. After the War people made them into a storage area or put plants on them.</p>

<p>I found this link of my local tube and the incident <a href="http://ww2today.com/14th-october-1940-disaster-at-balham-tube-station">Link</a></p>

<p>There is a really good and long running series on the BBC called the World at War you might be able to pick it up on Youtube it's really interesting. This week it has been about the concentration camps, It's extremely difficult to understand how people could do this to one another.</p>