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.

A November 22, 1944 letter from the International Committee of the Red Cross after they visited Auschwitz. They conclude they " had not been able to discover any trace of installations for exterminating civilian prisoners." Sadly, when it came to the Israeli hostages in Gaza, the ICRC has not atoned for its history and has not come through for the hostages.

The Handmaid’s Tale is fiction for you. For us, it’s real life. In Poland, I spoke about the victims of Auschwitz and the people massacred by the Islamic Republic in Iran. History teaches us what happens when the world looks away. We must remember the victims, confront tyranny, and refuse to let another massacre be met with silence. #Iran#

6 July 1939 | French Jewish girl, Huguette Gutmajnster, was born in Paris. In August 1942 she was deported to Auschwitz from Drancy. She was murdered in a gas chamber after the arrival selection.

Munich has Spielberg's most identifiable filmmaking, as in it's a series of bravura camera and edit set ups - but it is not in my favorites of his. It is a masterwork film for sure in a catalog of absolute genius work, but the movie leaves me cold. The politics are unclear other than killing is bad - not that it needs to answer anything - but it is ultimately a very dispiriting movie. You can't put this direction ahead of Schindler's List on a technical level anyways. There's a lot more risky camera/actor bonding moments in that film that won't be seen simply because it's so fluid. That's the true mark of directorial genius - when your art is so infused into the experience it is hard to extract the formality of it. Just take the long shot of Nazis trying to kill a man where Spielberg runs background extras on the malfunctioning gun as a joke...in an Auschwitz film...about a Jew being seemingly executed. I don't think there's any filmmaker in the world who could pull that off. Like how do you even fucking come up with that, and then think you can skillfully find the tone to make that scene work and not blow the film up but also question the nature of God or luck. That's not just genius, that's insanity. I love Spielberg. He will always be the greatest of all time. Munich is great, but it's not the Greatest. The moral murkiness of Munich is the greatest for adulting people in the middle of their existential crisis, who need answers to be nihilistic. But give it a couple years, have a couple children, love your family, and life becomes meaningful again. What makes something Great reminds us what makes us Great. As skillful as Munich is, the meaning is as important as the movement.