THE AUSCHWITZ ALBUM was found by a young Jewish girl (Lili Jacob Meier) during the final days of the Third Reich, when she was awaiting liberation. The album is the only surviving visual evidence of the entire process of extermination as perpetrated by the Nazis against the Jews, except for the actual murder itself. The photos are presumed to have been taken by Ernst Hofmann or by Bernhard Walter, two SS men, although there is no conclusive evidence of this. The time frame of the photos is May or June 1944, which saw the liquidation of a massive number of Hungarian Jews. Lili herself was the sole surviving member of her family, who had been deported from the Carpathians, from a small community living in Bielke. The photographs, all in black and white, are accompanied by text written by Peter Hellmann, and the images are haunting: men and women, entire families, waiting on the ramps after their exhausting journey by cattle cars to Auschwitz-Birkenau; wondering looks; doubt, uncertainty, hope clouding their faces, as they wonder about their fate; old people, young children, the infirm, all waiting to be selected for what we now know would be certain death. These images are not only poignant but horrifying because the threat to these innocents is implied in the photographs, with the crematoria looming in the background, with the implacable SS presence on the ramps and all over. I will not soon forget these images.