Photos from Johann Niemann (Sobibor) collection

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Michal78
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Re: Photos from Johann Niemann (Sobibor) collection

#31

Post by Michal78 » 30 Jan 2020, 23:22

Thanks, Max and Stefano. I just wanted to confirm the ID of the SA Oberfuehrer whose photo comes from the parade in Trieste. Blankenburg´s photos are extremely rare and I could hardly to compare with some others...
Michal

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Re: Photos from Johann Niemann (Sobibor) collection

#32

Post by Gorque » 31 Jan 2020, 02:08

dicktone wrote:
29 Jan 2020, 19:22
imrs-1.jpg

bmap21.jpg



Here's a photograph from the Niemann album alongside W. Rutherford's 2005 map of Sobibor (c. 1943). By my estimation, the photograph looks north east from a location roughly equivalent to the red square next to the number 11 on the map, which I assume is the location of a guard tower. The angle and elevation of the photograph suggests it was taken from the tower. We see the extreme south east corner of the camp, an area which, on Rutherford's map, corresponds to buildings 12, 13, and 5 through 9.

In the foreground is a guard hut: another is visible to the right of the gate on the right of the photo. The shack like structure in the left middle distance is labeled as a "storage hut" by Rutherford, and if that ID is right, then we see the extreme right hand gable end and wall of the SS accommodations at far left. The buildings in the distance are, right to left, speculatively identified as the Ukrainian jail, SS canteen and kitchen (perhaps two buildings rather than the L-shaped structure on Rutherford's map), perhaps the SS garage and, the commandant's house, the Schwalbennest.
Somethings not right with the photo and the map. According to the map, some structures are close to the fence-line but in the picture, the only thing close to the fence-line is brush and large stacks of wood. Which then begs the question of why one would place material near the inside of the fence-line which could assist in an escape. Perhaps its a early photo of the camp prior to its intended purpose; i.e. during construction.


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Re: Photos from Johann Niemann (Sobibor) collection

#33

Post by Max Williams » 31 Jan 2020, 10:01

Stefano wrote:
30 Jan 2020, 22:10
The question was "Did Blankenburg serve under the Globocnik in Trieste?" I think the reply to that is surely not. He was also not attached to Abteilung R, rather this was under his control. Otherwise you are right that Abteilung R men in the OZAK were ultimately under the authority of the Reichskanzlei in the person of Blankenburg.
Stefano
I think my use of the word "attached" caused confusion. Maybe "associated" would have been more appropriate. Technically, whilst on duty in Trieste, he came under the authority of the HSSPF by association.
Max.

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Re: Photos from Johann Niemann (Sobibor) collection

#34

Post by dicktone » 31 Jan 2020, 21:26

Somethings not right with the photo and the map. According to the map, some structures are close to the fence-line but in the picture, the only thing close to the fence-line is brush and large stacks of wood. Which then begs the question of why one would place material near the inside of the fence-line which could assist in an escape. Perhaps its a early photo of the camp prior to its intended purpose; i.e. during construction.
Thanks for the reply Gorque. Yes, there are quite a few discrepancies between Rutherford's map and the newly released photograph. Undoubtedly the map is less than accurate, based as it is on survivor testimony, recent archaeological evidence, and wartime aerial reconnaissance photographs. It's fascinating to actually get to see photographs of the camp after all this time.

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Re: Photos from Johann Niemann (Sobibor) collection

#35

Post by Gorque » 31 Jan 2020, 23:36

Hi dicktone:

I forgot my manners with the previous post. Welcome to AHF . :welcome:

I tend to agree with your analysis as to the location of the picture taker. I tried viewing it as a reversed photo and I couldn't come up with a different location. :)

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Re: Photos from Johann Niemann (Sobibor) collection

#36

Post by dicktone » 03 Feb 2020, 02:59

Interesting article from Dutch magazine de Volkskrant.
That Niemann was involved in the development of the extremely effective murder method of Aktion Reinhard from the start was unknown until now, says Kahrs. "We knew his name and that he had been to Sobibor, but we had no idea of ​​the central role he played there. The photos of his various posts in Aktion T4, Belzec and ultimately Sobibor show that he was a protagonist, a destruction expert. "

Niemann's considerations or thoughts about his actions are unknown. No diary or other ego document was found. "The photos show the perspective of a perpetrator, the image that Niemann wanted to show at home," says Kahrs. One of the captions in the Sobibor album is "memories." He did not focus on the destruction, the atrocities or excesses in the camps, but on his own career.

Niemann's photos show whitewashed houses with neat curtains in front of the windows and raked front gardens fenced with a layer of birch wooden decorative fence. We see Nazis toast on the terrace of the canteen in the middle of Sobibor, with presumably stolen crystal glasses. We see them laughing with an accordion and with the animals from the camp - a few hundred meters away from the gas chambers. Niemann often stands in the middle, in uniform. It seems that the more important his role in the Holocaust becomes, the more prominent he is in his own photos.

Occasionally there are forced laborers in the photos, as extras in the background. Not in the striped suits we know from Auschwitz, but in civilian clothes. We never see the 'Himmelfahrtstrasse', the corridor that the Jews had to go through to the eight gas chambers, nor the mass graves or the corpse burning in Camp III. The photographer - or photographers, it is unknown who made the images - remains as much as possible within the framework of the play that the Nazis wanted to stage to conceal the destruction.

The Vorlager , where most of Sobibor's photos were taken, is home to the SS and the Trawniki, guards of Central or Eastern European descent. In addition to their sleeping quarters, there is, among other things, a canteen with a terrace, a bowling alley, a kitchen and a laundry. There was even a dentist, a Jewish forced laborer who had to maintain the teeth of the staff, we read in Fotos aus Sobibor .

The first impression of Sobibor was confusing for the prisoners. Jules Schelvis, who spent a few hours in the camp before being taken to a labor camp and losing his wife and other family, wrote in his book about Sobibor: 'The barracks looked like houses from Tyrol and had names like Lustiger Floh, Gottes Heimat and Schwalbennest. " Selma Engel, one of the two Dutch survivors of the Sobibor uprising in October 1943, says in Ad van Liempt's Selma biography : 'When we arrived at the camp, it seemed ideal. Curtains hung flowers on the windows. " And Eda Lichtman, a Polish survivor, wrote: "Nobody wanted to believe that this was a place where people were destroyed."

In the same Vorlager, the photos of Johann Niemann show a farm with a decorated well in the middle. On the wooden timbered roof is a dovecote with a windmill as a windmill. Behind it are the stables, with two carved horse heads above it. There was no shortage of craftsmen in Sobibor, the wood carving was probably done by prisoners.

"The camp looked like a normal farm, except for the barbed wire fenced in barracks, in the middle of a beautiful green forest," said Dov Freiberg, a Polish Jew who arrived in Sobibor with the first transport in 1942, in a testimony in the archives of Yad Vashem.

If you look at the photos as a lay person, you probably see the same thing. Only when you know what you are looking at and what you should pay attention to, do you see details of the atrocities that have taken place behind the facade. In the background of one of the two group photos of the Trawniki where you can see Demjanjuk, a white structure stands out above the trees. Stanislaw Hantz established that it was the chimney of the gas chambers. The roof of the barber's shed where the women's hair was cut off before they were gassed can also be seen. The grab with which the corpses were taken from the mass graves for incineration - to prevent discovery - towered on several photos on the horizon. And many photos show the barbed wire that separated Vorlager from the murder factory.

To complete the facade, animals were kept in Sobibor. For example, Niemann is smiling in the picture with two other guards, each holding a newborn piglet. Another photo shows two guards with a dog with a flock of large white geese in the background. Both the geese and the dogs return in testimonials from survivors. In the documentary Shoah, Sobibor survivor Jehuda Lerner says: 'We heard screams and screeches. It was the sound of real geese. That lasted for an hour, then suddenly it became quiet again. We heard later that the Germans kept hundreds of geese. The moment the Jews started to scream, the Germans panicked the geese. The geese drowned the people like that. They were real geese, they were specially bred to nip the screams of people. "

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Re: Photos from Johann Niemann (Sobibor) collection

#37

Post by stryder » 03 Feb 2020, 17:16

dicktone wrote:
03 Feb 2020, 02:59
Interesting article from Dutch magazine de Volkskrant.
Occasionally there are forced laborers in the photos, as extras in the background. Not in the striped suits we know from Auschwitz, but in civilian clothes. We never see the 'Himmelfahrtstrasse', the corridor that the Jews had to go through to the eight gas chambers, nor the mass graves or the corpse burning in Camp III. The photographer - or photographers, it is unknown who made the images - remains as much as possible within the framework of the play that the Nazis wanted to stage to conceal the destruction.
Even in the Kurt Franz photos (Schöne Zeiten) at Treblinka, we don't see the bodies or the more cruel aspects of the destruction. I might add however, those photos that have been made publicly available. I have read that in the complete album there may be some such photos, but I cannot say for sure if that is the case. The name of the album itself "Beautiful Times" denies the guilt and mocks the victims. The mindset of the perpetrators as shown in all of these photos is that what they are doing is right and necessary, and the lives of the victims do not matter.

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Re: Photos from Johann Niemann (Sobibor) collection

#38

Post by dicktone » 03 Feb 2020, 17:57

I have read that in the complete album there may be some such photos, but I cannot say for sure if that is the case.
Are all of the photos in the album in the Metropol publication Fotos aus Sobibor (http://metropol-verlag.de/produkt/fotos-aus-sobibor/)? I read elsewhere that there are 49 photos from Niemann's time in Sobibor in the album.

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Re: Photos from Johann Niemann (Sobibor) collection

#39

Post by itaiv40 » 03 Feb 2020, 20:14

There are more than 350 photos in the album.

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Re: Photos from Johann Niemann (Sobibor) collection

#40

Post by dicktone » 03 Feb 2020, 20:24

There are more than 350 photos in the album.
Thanks for the clarification.

A clarification also re. the discrepancies between the Rutherford 2005 map and Niemann's photos on the layout of the camp, from this Times of Israel story (the "Haimi" quoted is Israeli archeologist Yoram Haimi who has excavated portions of Sobibor).
Like the series of Russian photos taken in 1944, the “Sobibor Perpetrator Collection” helps refine our understanding of the camp map, said Haimi. For example, the guard tower wide-shot demonstrates that nearly all of the post-war maps created of Camp I — where Jewish prisoners who served the SS lived — erroneously placed a row of buildings too close to the fence.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/sobibor-p ... er-revolt/

The USHMM gives the full rundown of the collection.
Approximately 50 loose photographs of the Sobibor killing center from winter 1942 to summer 1943. Besides Niemann, these images show camp commandant Franz Reichleitner, Erich Bauer (in charge of gassing operations), Gustav Wagner (in charge of the daily running of the camp), and more than two dozen additional perpetrators.
The Sobibor photographs also depict several camp prisoners, local civilian female servants, German official guests, and auxiliary guards (among them possibly John Demjanjuk in two of the photographs).
A series of 14 loose photographs showing the funeral held in the nearby city of Chelm for the eleven SS men killed during the Sobibor prisoner revolt in October 1943.
An album of 80 photographs which depict an official trip to Berlin and Potsdam as an award for personnel from the Sobibor and Treblinka killing centers (including Niemann and his wife) and a group of twenty-two Trawniki auxiliary guards.
An album of 116 photographs depicting Niemann’s early SS career in the Esterwegen and Sachsenhausen concentration camps, as well as his work in the “euthanasia” facilities of Grafeneck, Brandenburg, and Bernburg.
Four images from the Belzec killing center from late 1941 to early 1942.
Documents in the collection include correspondence between Niemann and his wife - some bearing a “Sobibor” stamp - and an inventory list of the contents of Niemann’s estate sent to his widow, naming the two photo albums described above.

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Re: Photos from Johann Niemann (Sobibor) collection

#41

Post by Georg_S » 06 Feb 2020, 15:17

I recieved my copy today, even if I ordered the ebook did I get it as hardback, but I dont regret it. I can strongly rec. it. Photos of Reichleitner, and many more notorius gus

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Re: Photos from Johann Niemann (Sobibor) collection

#42

Post by itaiv40 » 06 Feb 2020, 19:05

Can you post some photos, with a full credit to the source of course?

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Re: Photos from Johann Niemann (Sobibor) collection

#43

Post by Georg_S » 06 Feb 2020, 21:23

I Will make a few tomorrow ☺️👍

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Re: Photos from Johann Niemann (Sobibor) collection

#44

Post by dicktone » 08 Feb 2020, 04:16

The USHMM just posted these four photos to their Twitter account
Attachments
Screenshot 2020-02-07 21.13.23.png
Screenshot 2020-02-07 21.13.14.png
Screenshot 2020-02-07 21.13.04.png
Screenshot 2020-02-07 21.12.53.png

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Re: Photos from Johann Niemann (Sobibor) collection

#45

Post by mil-archive » 10 Feb 2020, 16:29

This book arrived today and is well worth the price in my view. Its in a slightly rectangular format which is very suitable for photo content/photo album content. Printed in Hardback with very clear images printed well in terms of sharpness and contrast etc. It also contains document sections, is well indexed and even includes other albums such as an SS Brandenburg one with over 100 images all included & a Berlin travel album too with lots of SS Downtime photo material in addition to the main book focus material (Niemann photos related to T4, Belzec and more substantially Sobibor). There are also several Niemann grave ceremony pictures tastefully included. If this comes out in an English language edition I will probably get that also, well worth the 30 EUR.

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