This third section focuses on what happened during the Holocaust.
It represents yet another complete shift of mood and tempo, with the
emphasis on what can be learnt in Poland today about the brutality of
the destruction. The powerful photographs in this section aim to help
visitors go beyond the conventional symbols and understand more about
what happened, how it happened, and where it happened.
The photographs from Auschwitz are testimony to the huge force, scale,
and mechanics of the destruction that took place there. Gazing at the
winter scenes of bleak wooden barracks stretching in deep snow to a
distant horizon, one cannot avoid thinking about what it was like to
be there then; the summer pictures, in contrast, convey a sense of the
terrible heat that was for many no less a torture. Most of the
photographs were taken in Auschwitz-Birkenau, some of them in the
remoter parts of this extremely large camp. The locations photographed
in the main Auschwitz camp, with its brick-built barracks and museum
exhibits, are perhaps better known but are no less forceful even if
they are more familiar.
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