8: Photo of women being transported to a Nazi concentration camp, circa 1942-1944, and photo of Hungarian Jewish women and children arriving at Auschwitz, 1944.

8: Photo of women being transported to a Nazi concentration camp, circa 1942-1944, and photo of Hungarian Jewish women and children arriving at Auschwitz, 1944.

These two photographs, taken by Nazi photographers, depict people being transported to and unloaded at concentration camps.

Suggested Activity: Study the first image with students. What emotions do they see on the faces of the women looking out through the opening of the car? How does this image resonate with the passage by Ruth Kluger (resource #2) or the poem by Pagis (resource #3)?

Now study the second image. Look carefully at the people in the photograph. What emotions can be seen in their faces? What might they have been thinking and feeling as they disembarked from the railway car and were forced to pose for the camera?

In what ways do these images deepen your understanding of “Written in Pencil in the Sealed Railway-Car”? How does examining historical images strengthen one’s understanding of the Holocaust?

Sources: Women being transported to a Nazi concentration camp. Circa 1942-1944. Bundesarchiv (Federal Archives of Germany).

Jewish women and children from Subcarpathian Rus await selection on the ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. 1944. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Yad Vashem (Public Domain).