Tuesday, June 21, 2011

History Files: Sleuthing a Nazi Photo album

For sale by an owner in New York is a photo album that is mesmerizing historians. It was assembled by an unknown Nazi photographer (it may contain work by two photographers) who had very close access to Adolf Hitler but also captured haunting images of German campaigns and Russian POWs - many of the latter marked with the Star of David and awaiting a certain death at the hands of the SS. What's fascinating here is not just the album, but the record of historical detective work here, including inputs from the public that decipher specific landmarks, dates and names to get us closer to the photographer's identity - but do not, at this point, reveal it.

No comments: