History
A
B
C
D
Photographing the Holocaust It’s important to be sensitive to the types of photographs that we use when studying the Holocaust. Photographs can be a very useful source for historians but many people find the more graphic images to be insensitive and glorifying Nazi crimes. Above are a selection of photographs that will help you to get a better idea as to how the Holocaust happened.
TASK 1 Match the description below to the correct photograph. Photograph
Description This shows the inside of a gas chamber. When first arriving at the concentrations camps, some people would be taken straight to the gas chamber. They were usually told they were being taken for a shower. Hundreds of people were crammed into the space, the door was sealed shut and a guard wearing a gas mask tipped pellets of Zyklon B into the chamber from a hatch above. The pellets formed a gas that killed the people inside in minutes. This shows the sleeping quarters of a group of men at a concentration camp. You can tell by their physique that they were malnourished. The conditions were cramped and the beds would be very uncomfortable. People were transported to camps on trains, usually in cattle wagons, often travelling huge distances in very cramped conditions without any food or water. People were told that they were being ‘resettled’ in the East. They took their belongings with them, hoping that they could start a new life there. Some prisoners, known as the Sonderkommando, were forced to sort through the belongings of victims and were even forced to burn the bodies.
Y O U R S U M M E R B O O K LE T
Delta Academies Trust
13
