Title: In the Shadow of Horror, SS Guardians Frolic

Source: New York Times.
Author: By NEIL A. LEWIS

Date of Publication: Published: September 19, 2007

Summary:

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, received a package -donated by an anonymous United States Army intelligence officer -containing 16 cardboard pages, with 116 photos pasted on both sides which significance relies on the fact that the pictures show a group of senior SS officers that was maintained by Karl Höcker, the adjutant to the camp commandant. These pictures show this group of men and women having leisure time, eating, drinking and resting. The album also contains eight photos of Josef Mengele, the camp doctor notorious for participating in the selections of arriving prisoners and cruel medical experiments. The pictures were taken in Auschwitz, which according to the their dates, function as a counterpart for the so-called Auschwitz Album, a compilation of pictures taken by SS photographers in the spring of 1944 and discovered by Lili Jacob, a Hungarian Jew who was deported in May 1944 to Auschwitz, near Krakow in Poland. This new set of pictures is considered to be an invaluable and instructive document, because it displays SS officers’ lives in opposition to the outrageous reality of 1994 in Auschwitz’ reclusion camps.
Personal reaction:
Documents are extremely important, and this set of pictures do reveal much of what it is not said or shown, more than that, it is sometimes denied. The SS officers enjoyed from their leisure time as any other human being; but what is absolutely disgusting is that they killed thousands of other human beings between times. As the article explains, this new pictures, dated in the summer of 1944, serves as a counterpart for another set of pictures, this one created by SS officers, who found the atmosphere in Auschwitz as “amusing”. Is there any amusement in knowing that in the summer of 1944 crematoriums broke down from overuse and some bodies had to be burned in open pits…?

 
 

Vocabulary:

scrapbook
noun [C]
a book with empty pages where you can stick newspaper articles, pictures, etc. which you have collected and want to keep
adjutant
noun [C]
a military officer who does office work and who is responsible for rules and punishment among the lower ranks
horde
noun [C] OFTEN DISAPPROVING
a large group of people:
Hordes of students on bikes made crossing the road difficult.

cadre
group noun [C]
a small group of trained people who form the basic unit of a military, political or business organization

cadre
noun [C]
a member of such a group
frolic verb [I] frolicking, frolicked, frolicked
to behave in a happy and playful way:
A group of suntanned children were frolicking on the beach.

frolic
noun [C or U] OLD-FASHIONED
happy and playful behaviour:
a harmless frolic
It was all fun and frolics until it began to pour down with rain.

frolics
plural noun
happy and playful behaviour

frolicsome
adjective LITERARY
lively and playful

regalia
noun [U]
1 official and traditional special clothes and decorations, especially those worn or carried on ceremonial occasions:
The queen’s regalia at her coronation included her crown and sceptre.

2 INFORMAL HUMOROUS any set of special clothes:
The biker was dressed in full regalia, with shiny black leather and lots of chains.

poignant
adjective
causing or having a particularly sharp feeling of sadness:
The photograph awakens poignant memories of happier days.
It is especially poignant that he died on the day before the wedding.

poignantly
adverb

poignancy
noun [U]
The poem has a haunting poignancy.
deem
verb [T not continuous] FORMAL
to consider or judge something in a particular way:
[+ object + noun or adjective] The area has now been deemed safe.
[+ noun or adjective] We will provide help whenever you deem it appropriate.
[+ object + to infinitive] Anyone not paying the registration fee by 31 March will be deemed to have withdrawn from the scheme.
pit (HOLE)
noun [C]
1 a large hole in the ground, or a slightly low area in any surface:
They’d dug a shallow pit and left the bodies in it.
These pits in my skin are from when I had chickenpox.

2 a coal mine or an area of land from which a natural substance is taken by digging.

the pit noun [C usually singular]
in a theatre, the seats at the lowest level, or the orchestra pit

pitted
adjective
marked with holes or low areas.

lodge (SMALL BUILDING)
noun [C]
a small house in the country used especially by people on holiday or taking part in sports, or one on the land owned by a large house:
a ski/hunting lodge
alight (GET OUT)
verb [I] alighted or OLD-FASHIONED alit, alighted or OLD-FASHIONED alit FORMAL
to get out of a vehicle, especially a train or bus.

haggard
adjective
looking ill or tired, often with dark skin under the eyes:
He’d been drinking the night before and was looking a bit haggard.