Thursday, September 27, 2007

New Auschwitz Photos: The Ordinariness of Evil

 
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The ordinariness of evil...or something to that effect. I recalled those words from long ago by Hannah Arendt when I saw these photos posted on the BBC. They were recently handed over to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum by a former US Army officer who found the album in Frankfurt in 1946. The pictures were in the collection of Karl Hoecker, a Nazi SS officer.

These frolicksome Nazi men and fraulein played while Jews were murdered in the Auschwitz death houses. According to Iran's President Ahmadinajad, such photos as these prove that nothing but smoke was going up the chimneys at the Nazi death camps.

The group of SS Officers in the foreground picture included handsome Doctor Josef Mengele. He's the one with folded arms, contemplating new atrocities and sadistic acts. Is it just me or is there a strong family resemblance with the late Abu Zarqawi?

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