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From "Euthanasia" to Sobibor
An SS Officer's Photo Collection
Edited by Martin Cüppers, Anne Lepper and Jürgen Matthäus
Contributions by Bildungswerk Stanisław Hantz, Jetje Manheim, Karin Graf, Florian Ross, Steffen Hänschen, Annett Gerhardt and Andreas Kahrs
Published by: Indiana University Press
386 Pages, 41 color illus., 163 b&w photos, 2 maps
- eBook
- 9780253064332
- Published: November 2022
$39.99
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The mass murder of the European Jews by Nazi Germany went hand in hand with the destruction of evidence attesting to this genocide. As Holocaust survivor Jules Schelvis puts it, "very few documents relating to Sobibor and the other death camps" remain. With its rich photographic imagery, the collection featured in From "Euthanasia" to Sobibor: An SS Officer's Photo Collection sheds new light on the Holocaust and other key aspects of Nazi extermination policy. The materials were compiled by Johann Niemann, an SS officer whose earlier participation in the Nazi "euthanasia" murders made him second-in-command at Sobibor and the first to get killed in the prisoner uprising of October 13, 1943. These documents allow crucial insights into the making of mass murderers, the evolution of the "final solution," and its consequences for the victims.
As prevalent as the perpetrator perspective is in Niemann's collection, From "Euthanasia" to Sobibor offers a welcome corrective by complementing his images and documents with testimonies of Sobibor survivors, many of which also available in the US Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) archives.
With its compilation of unique primary sources and skillful explication, From "Euthanasia" to Sobibor addresses under-researched aspects of Nazi mass violence beyond the Holocaust and offers a rich resource for researching and teaching.
Published in Association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Foreword, by Bildungswerk Stanisław Hantz
Preface, by Jetje Manheim
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Map
1. The Niemann Photographs: A Unique Collection from the Holocaust, by Martin Cüppers
2. Johann Gerhard Niemann: From Völlen to Sobibor, Part 1, by Karin Graf and Florian Ross
Photos from the Niemann Collection, up to 1942
3. Johann Gerhard Niemann: From Völlen to Sobibor, Part 2, by Karin Graf and Florian Ross
Photos from the Niemann collection, from the Period of Operation T4
4. Realizing the Unthinkable: Operation T4, Operation Reinhard, and their Actors, by Martin Cüppers
5. Belzec: The First Operation Reinhard Killing Center, by Florian Ross and Steffen Hänschen
Niemann's Photos from Belzec
6. The Sobibor Death Camp, by Steffen Hänschen, Annett Gerhardt, Andreas Kahrs, Anne Lepper, and Martin Cüppers
Niemann's photos from Sobibo
7. The Trawnikis: Auxiliaries to the Holocaust, by Martin Cüppers
8. Reward for Genocide: A Trip to Berlin for Perpetrators from Operation Reinhard, by Martin Cüppers and Steffen Hänschen
The Berlin Album and Additional Travel Pictures
9. The Revolt at Sobibor and the End of the Death Camp, by Anne Lepper, Andreas Kahrs, Annett Gerhardt, and Steffen Hänschen
10. Henriette Niemann: Wife and Mother, Confidante and Profiteer, by Anne Lepper and Martin Cüppers
Henriette Niemann in the Photo Collection
11. Living with the Memory: Meetings with Semion Rozenfeld, by Anne Lepper
Photos with Semion Rozenfeld and a Map of Sobibor Drawn by Him
Appendix 1: The Brandenburg Album
Appendix 2: Documents from the Niemann Collection
Appendix 3: Short Biographies of Survivors of the Sobibor Camp
Appendix 4: Short Biographies of German Perpetrators
Sources and Bibliography
Index
Martin Cüppers, academic director of the Ludwigsburg Research Center and professor of modern history at the University of Stuttgart. He is the author of numerous works in German, including Walther Rauff—In deutschen Diensten: Vom Naziverbrecher zum BND-Spion. Anne Lepper, historian, educational consultant, and project coordinator. She represents the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem in the German-speaking countries. In her work with the Bildungswerk Stanisław Hantz e. V. (BSH), she organizes Holocaust educational trips in Lithuania. Jürgen Matthäus, historian and director for Applied Research at the USHMM's Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center. He is the editor of the center's source volume series Documenting Life and Destruction (14 vols.).
"An unforgettable look at genocide as seen by its perpetrators. Johann Niemann's albums document his career from SS man at Grafeneck, burning the bodies of people deemed "unworthy of life," to Deputy Commandant of Sobibor, where he directed the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews. The photos show him as he wanted to see himself – impeccably groomed, relaxed, and powerful – but the superb interpretative chapters reveal the systemic and colossal brutality of which he was both a product and a proponent."
~Doris L. Bergen, Chancellor Rose and Ray Wolfe Professor of Holocaust Studies, University of Toronto; author of War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust
"From "Euthanasia" to Sobibor presents an amazingly extensive collection of recently-discovered photographs that had been collected by SS-officer Johann Niemann, whose rose from obscurity to become the Deputy Commandant of Sobibor and was executed in the October 1943 prisoner uprising and breakout. These photographs illustrate a lethal career that saw Niemann serve in four "euthanasia" centers created by the Nazi regime to murder the German handicapped as well as in the death camps of Belzec and Sobibor. Alongside the photographs are chapters that summarize cutting-edge scholarship on a number of relevant topics but especially on the German personnel who staffed these camps and the East European auxiliaries who guarded them."
~Christopher R. Browning, Frank Porter Graham Professor of History Emeritus, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
"This remarkable and meticulously researched volume presents one of the most significant private perpetrator photo collections to survive. For unraveling the horrible conundrum of human participation in genocide, the collection is an essential source, both revealing and impenetrable in one."
~Mark Roseman, Distinguished Professor of History, Pat M Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies, Indiana University