The Last Album

by Weiss, Ann

• ISBN13: 9780827607842
• ISBN10: 0827607849
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-09-15
• Publisher: Jewish Pubn Society

Summary

Ann Weiss entered a locked room at Auschwitz and came across an archive of over 2,400 photographs brought to the death camp by Jewish deportees from across Europe during the Holocaust. The photos, both candid snapshots and studied portraits, had been confiscated, but instead of being destroyed they were hidden at great risk and saved. In many cases these pictures are the only remnants left of entire families. In this revised edition of The Last Album there are over 400 of these remarkable photographs. The collection traces the story of how they arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau and how the author came to see them through what was essentially a fortuitous accident. In the years that followed, Weiss identified as many people and places in the photos as possible, traveling around the world to track down remaining family members and friends, and listening to stories of the inmates' lives before they were removed to the camp. Many of these accounts are transcribed here. Although the photographs in this book were found at a death camp, they are bursting with life. We see babies; parents with their children; groups of teenagers; people at work, at school, at home, on vacation -- normal people leading normal lives. The photographs and reminiscences gathered here offer a rare and intensely personal view of who these individuals were and, most importantly, how they chose to remember themselves.

Author Biography

Ann Weiss is founder and director of the Eyes from the Ashes Educational Foundation.

Table of Contents

Dedication	8	(5)
Foreword	13	(3)
Introduction	16	(4)
Eyes from the Ashes	20	(18)
Background and History of the Photographs
The Photographs	38	(81)
Leibl Henesh	38	(16)
The Bedzin Orphanage	54	(2)
The Bes Yaakov School	56	(2)
The Rappaport School	58	(2)
Furstenburg Gymnasium	60	(7)
Szancerowa School	67	(29)
Hasidim	96	(4)
Zionism	100	(12)
Kicia Szpiegelman	112	(7)
The Families	119	(97)
The Cukierman Family	120	(14)
The Diament Family	134	(3)
Manya Fuchs and Viktor Goldman	137	(1)
The Gitter and Stawski Families	138	(3)
Roselena and Werner Hirsch	141	(3)
The Huppert Family	144	(12)
The Kohn and Broder Families	156	(18)
The Koplowicz Family	174	(12)
The Malach Family	186	(8)
Genya Gutfreund Manela	194	(2)
Moshe Manela	196	(2)
The Monka and Rosen Families	198	(8)
The Strochlitz Family	206	(6)
Josef ``Yossel'' Rosensaft	212	(3)
Jakub Jakubowicz and Ania Igra	215	(1)
Addendum	216	(6)
Afterword	222	(2)
Acknowledgments	224	(6)
Index	230