The cover of a new book entitled Auschwitz-Birkenau The Place Where You are Standing
I made the photo of the cover of a new book entitled Auschwitz-Birkenau The Place Where You are Standing as big as I could, so that one can clearly see that the two photos don’t match.
My photo of the guard tower at Auschwitz-Birkenau that was not there in May 1944.
Why did the people, who are in charge of the former Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, build a flimsy guard tower where no guard tower existed when the camp was in operation?
Think about it for a moment! Auschwitz-Birkenau was an extermination camp. Jews were brought there on trains for the purpose of being gassed to death. Yet the old photo shows no guard tower, no dogs, no guns — nothing to prevent the 3,000 prisoners, who were getting off the train, from rioting and beating the Nazi murderers to death. The guard tower was added later to show that the prisoners were controlled by a guard in a tower, pointing a gun at them.
Hungarian Jews at Auschwitz-Birkenau have just gotten off a transport train (photo from Auschwitz Album)
The German soldier in the photo above looks to me like a decent fellow. It appears that he is straightening the collar of a Jewish prisoner, who has his coat unbuttoned, and his collar is in disarray. But maybe I’m wrong; maybe he is saying: “You’re too old to work — off to the gas chamber with you!” It does not appear that the SS man in the photo is armed. He had better watch out for Geza Lajtbs, the woman in the foreground. She could be carrying a knife or a gun and kill him while he is distracted.
Photo from the Auschwitz Album, taken in May 1944
Location of the building (shown in the old photo above) that has been torn down
My 2005 photo of a building at Auschwitz-Birkenau
I identified the building shown in the photo above as the building where the women are standing in the old photo. The building in my photo does not match the old photo exactly, but it is very similar. The building in my photo is located on the south side of the main road, in the women’s camp, and the building in the background is the gatehouse. The photo in the new book was taken on the north side of the Birkenau camp, a long way from the women’s camp; the building in the background of the photo in the book was formerly an administration building that was outside the camp.
A friend who was reading this post, as I was typing, pointed out that the cover photo consists of two photos, each of which have been torn in two. He thought that the old photo on the left side actually showed the guard tower in the part of the photo that had been torn off. I am showing the original photo below, so that everyone can see that the old photo did not show a guard tower.
Old photo from the Auschwitz Album that is used on cover of a new book
In the old photo above, the man who is facing the camera and holding a cigarette at chest height is Dr. Josef Mengele. Note that he does not appear to be armed and he has turned his back on the male prisoners who could have easily thrown him to the ground and beaten him to death with their bare hands.
In the old photo above, the Jews, who are lined up, are moments away from being gassed in Krema II or Krema III, two gas chambers which are behind the camera, only a few yards away. The official website for the new book is here.
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