The man worked in a concentration camp photographer.
In 1940, 23-year-old Polish photographer Wilhelm Brass was in the death camp Auschwitz. After the occupation of Poland, he came to the interrogation to the SS officer, which refused to give the oath of allegiance to Hitler, and he was sent to prison for three months. After the photographer tried to escape to Hungary to join Polish forces, but he was caught at the border and sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The brass had to work in the camp photographer because the Nazis wanted it documented the results of their experiments on prisoners. The photographer recalled that he made between 40 to 50 thousand “identification of images” in the years 1940-1945. After the arrival of Soviet troops on the territory of Poland in Brass and other prisoners were taken to the concentration camp Ebensee. Only in may 1945 they were liberated by American soldiers.
After the liberation and the end of the war, Wilhelm Brass was trying to get back to photography, but every time he looked into the viewfinder in front of him stood a gaunt figure of prisoners of concentration camps. He abandoned photography and opened another business.
One and a half years of imprisonment in Auschwitz, the photographer met the Josef Mengele — a German doctor, known for conducting inhumane medical experiments on prisoners. The brass had to photograph the results of his experiments.
One day he had to take the death of prisoners from the gas “Zyklon B”.
Photo 14-year-old Polish girl Czeslawa Kwok inspired the poetess Teresa Edwards and an artist Lori Schreiner in the book Painting Czesława Kwoka (“Portrait Czeslawa Kwok”). The book is dedicated to the memory of the children victims of the Holocaust, was awarded the LIFE Award.
As a photographer, the Brass was distinguished by a special ability to calm clients of the company where he worked before the war.
In an interview with the Brass remembered that he was ashamed of being photographed with the prisoners, he tried to pacify them, but could do nothing to help them, afraid to disobey.
Many years later the photographer returned to the Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau at concentration camp, to share memories with visitors. He had a camera, but he did not make a single picture.
Died William Brass at the age of 94 in his hometown of Zywiec, leaving a wife, two children and five grandchildren.