Stéphane Lizeray

This is Wolf Kirschenbaum, Auschwitz prisoner number 21897, a Jewish farmer who was deported to the camp from occupied Poland on 22 October 1941. Wolf was born on 20 November 1887, making him 53 years old when this registration photograph was taken. On his striped uniform you can still see the identification markings imposed on Jewish prisoners, with overlapping triangles forming a Star of David and his camp number displayed beneath them. At Auschwitz, Jewish prisoners who were registered were usually classified administratively as political prisoners and marked with a red triangle combined with yellow to distinguish them as Jews. His photograph formed part of the enormous registration system operated by the camp’s Political Department. Prisoners were normally photographed from three angles and their number, nationality and prisoner category recorded. The photography laboratory was located in Block 26 at Auschwitz I and was staffed largely by prisoners working under SS supervision. Wolf arrived before tattooing became standard at Auschwitz, meaning the number sewn onto his clothing and recorded in camp documents was particularly important for identifying him. Routine tattooing of incoming prisoners only began later, becoming widespread from 1942 and 1943. But the most striking information is underneath his photograph. Wolf Kirschenbaum arrived at Auschwitz on 22 October 1941. He died on 28 October 1941. He had survived just six days in the camp, and was only three weeks away from his 54th birthday. The surviving display records his occupation simply as a farmer and does not give a cause of death. Near the end of the war, the SS ordered the Auschwitz photographic archive destroyed. Prisoner photographers Wilhelm Brasse and Bronisław Jureczek deliberately frustrated the attempt, helping preserve thousands of photographs that otherwise would have disappeared. Today the Auschwitz Museum holds 38,916 surviving prisoner photographs, including 31,969 of men and 6,947 of women. That survival means prisoner 21897 is more than an entry in a camp register. More than 80 years later, we can still put a face to Wolf Kirschenbaum, a 53 year old farmer whose entire imprisonment at Auschwitz lasted only six days.