DHHRM | Auschwitz Through the Lens of the SS

Shortly after World War II, an American intelligence officer in Germany uncovered a personal album of photographs chronicling SS officer activities at Auschwitz-Birkenau. A chilling visual record from the Holocaust, the album was hidden in a garage for 70 years and then donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Historian Rebecca Erbelding, Ph.D., joins us to explore the photo album, which she determines was compiled by Karl Höcker, the adjutant to the camp commandant of Auschwitz. Containing rare images of SS officers at leisure, even as atrocities unfolded nearby, the album offers a disturbing glimpse into the personal lives of the perpetrators. Erbelding will share the album’s historical context, significance, and the complex ethical questions it raises about memory and complicity.

About the Speaker
Rebecca Erbelding has been a historian, curator, and archivist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for 21 years. She holds a Ph.D. in American history from George Mason University. Her first book, Rescue Board: The Untold Story of America’s Efforts to Save the Jews of Europe, won the 2018 National Jewish Book Award for excellence in writing based on archival research. She and her work are
featured in the 2022 PBS documentary “The U.S. and the Holocaust,” directed by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and Sarah Botstein. Her next book, Shelter on the Lake: 982 Holocaust Refugees and an American Small Town, will be released in spring 2027.

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