Auschwitz
Auschwitz
This photograph, taken at 11am on 23 August 1944, by 60 Squadron RAF, has never previously been published, having only recently been discovered in the Aerial Reconnaissance Archives at Keele University. At this stage in the history of Auschwitz, in the final months of the war, we know now that Hungarian Jewry was being devastated. The number of people being gassed was so high that the crematoriums were unable to burn all the corpses. Huge pits were dug for the bodies instead, and this image graphically illustrates the burning of one such pit.
There is much debate about how much the photo interpreters knew concerning the German concentration camps. There are many aerial photographs of Auschwitz, and this reconnaissance sortie, like many of the others, was tasked with photographing the IG Farben synthetic fuel and rubber plant only 8km (5 miles) away. They photographed Auschwitz on their way to the assigned target, but what they made of it is not on record. .
