The Auschwitz Photographer
The Forgotten Story of the WWII Prisoner Who Documented Thousands of Lost Souls
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4.6 • 19 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
The Nazis asked him to swear allegiance to Hitler, betraying his country, his friends, and everything he believed in.
He refused.
Poland, 1939. Professional photographer Wilhelm Brasse is deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and finds himself in a deadly race to survive, assigned to work as the camp's intake photographer and take "identity pictures" of prisoners as they arrive by the trainload. Brasse soon discovers his photography skills are in demand from Nazi guards as well, who ask him to take personal portraits for them to send to their families and girlfriends. Behind the camera, Brasse is safe from the terrible fate that so many of his fellow prisoners meet. But over the course of five years, the horrifying scenes his lens capture, including inhumane medical "experiments" led by Josef Mengele, change Brasse forever.
Based on the true story of Wilhelm Brasse, The Auschwitz Photographer is a stark black-and-white reminder of the horrors of the Holocaust. This gripping work of World War II narrative nonfiction takes readers behind the barbed wire fences of the world's most feared concentration camp, bringing Brasse's story to life as he clicks the shutter button thousands of times before ultimately joining the Resistance, defying the Nazis, and defiantly setting down his camera for good.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historians Crippa and Onnis paint a cinematic portrait of Wilhelm Brasse, a political prisoner who took thousands of photographs of fellow inmates during his five-year incarceration at Auschwitz. Of Austrian and Polish descent, Brasse (1917–2012) worked as a teenager at his uncle's photography studio. After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, he tried to escape to France to join the Free Polish Army, but was arrested and eventually sent to Auschwitz, where he was recruited to join the camp's Identification Service. Though the Germans mainly wanted to make sure "they were murdering the right person," Brasse spent hours retouching photos of the "living dead" in order to "present them to history with their dignity intact." He also took portraits of S.S. officers and documented Josef Mengele's medical experiments. In January 1945, as the Russians approached Auschwitz, Brasse refused orders to destroy the photographs; many are now on display at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Relying on a BBC documentary and other secondary sources, the authors recreate plenty of dramatic episodes, but Brasse's interior world remains somewhat elusive throughout. Still, readers will be captivated by this unlikely story of survival and compassion under the cruelest of circumstances. Photos.
