The Face of Evil: This is what the murderers of the Jewish people look like - in color | Israel today

The Jews in the camp called him the executioner from Buchenwald, and his name justified the title.

In pictures first published in color, decades after the Holocaust, Martin Sommer, the assistant commander of the infamous concentration camp who was in charge of the local prison, is seen hanging Jews with their hands hanging back and kicking someone else's body.

This was one of the methods that Sommer particularly liked to use to abuse the camp inmates.

According to various testimonies, the hangers, some of whom hung for hours and even days, could not bear the terrible pain and their cries were heard throughout the camp and sowed fear and terror among the rest.

At his trial, in the late 1950s, he said he did what he did because "he loved it."

He was sentenced to a lengthy prison term, released for health reasons and died in 1988.

Martin Sommer abuses Jews, Photo: Yossi Biran, The Holocaust in color

The cruel method of hanging the Nazis, Photo: Yossi Biran, The Holocaust in color

What do sadism and evil in color look like?

The difficult and sometimes unpleasant-looking answer can be seen in the Facebook group "The Holocaust in Color".

The director, Yossi Biran, is not afraid to look evil in the eye, gives life to images that mainly symbolize death and does not intend to spare details so that the next generation will also be shocked and remember one of the dark periods that the Jewish people knew.

Alongside the photos he publishes difficult-to-read and digest descriptions, which tell the story of the people who lost every human photographer and murdered tens of thousands in their hands.

Byrne uses various software to paint the hard images taken about 80 years ago in black and white.

"I have no sacred cows in this matter," he explains, "I do not spare anyone. I have no problem talking about a Jew who did not behave properly or a German who worked for the Jews nor the psychopaths who did terrible things. The only red line I have is not "To publish corpses out of respect for the dead. I have no desire to humiliate and cross the line into the realm of death pornography."

Martin Sommer in his youth, Photo: Yossi Biran, The Holocaust in color

Martin Sommer before his death, Photo: Yossi Biran, The Holocaust in color

One by one, the Nazis and their aides are brought up, alongside descriptions of their vile deeds.

One of the most difficult descriptions is of Carmen Murray, a Swiss journalist who spied for the Nazis, who later served as a capo in the Ravensbrueck concentration camp because the Germans suspected she was acting as a double agent.

"She tortured the prisoners and watched them eat their own feces," Byrne began the description of the atrocities committed by Murray.

She used to beat helpless prisoners and a former prisoner said that Murray told him on one occasion in relation to other prisoners: "I am human, instead of the shot they deserve, they will die humanly. They are hot because their stench warms them. But I have the most fun watching them eat the feces Of themselves. "

Murray was located after the war, prosecuted and sentenced to death for war crimes.

The sentence was slashed in 1947.

Female inmates in a concentration camp, Photo: Yossi Biran, The Holocaust in color

Used to watch prisoners eating their feces.

Carmen Mori, Photo: Yossi Biran, The Holocaust in Color

Another terrible war criminal whose picture was first revealed in color is Oscar Dirlewanger who commanded a labor camp in Poland and was known as a fan of atrocities and sadism.

On one occasion he undressed Jewish women, whipped them and finally injected them with poison and watched them die.

Abuse of Jewish prisoners in the Holocaust, Photo: Yossi Biran, The Holocaust in color

Oscar Dirlewanger - sadist and psychopathic killer, Photo: Yossi Biran, Life in Color

His unit also participated in the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and according to various testimonies he set fire to three hospitals and burned the patients to death, not before he and his soldiers beat and raped some of the women and hung them naked in the street.

In another case, the group said, "members of the unit murdered 500 children, when according to the testimony of a soldier who served in the area - the murder was done by using the weapons cabins and bayonets, to save ammunition."

Dirlewanger was arrested in 1945 in France and was soon found dead in his cell.

The cause of death has not been determined to date.

Biran (59), who lives in Samaria, is a member of a Holocaust survivor family of German descent who previously lived in Germany.

From childhood he was attracted to the subject of the Holocaust, later he studied history at Humboldt University in Berlin and over the years he gained a great deal of knowledge and especially a great deal of material from that period.

“I have a lot of sources, mostly from abroad, and I get materials all the time.

Over the years I have created a very respectable archive.

All the pictures I have posted so far are a very small percentage of what I have.

I have boxes with materials, documents, photos and diaries that I occasionally browse through and publish the findings. "

Abuse of a Jew, Photo: Yossi Biran, The Holocaust in color

The command staff of the Mathausen concentration camp, from left to right: Erich Wasitsky (pharmacist), Karl Schultz (the Gestapo office in the camp), Franz Zireis (camp commander), Edward Krebsbach (camp doctor), Karl Bohmichen (camp doctor), unidentified officer, photo : Yossi Biran, The Holocaust in Color

About a year ago, he founded the unique Facebook group in which he shares texts and photos from the Holocaust period.

"When my three older children studied for matriculation in history, and also learned about the Holocaust, it became clear to me that nothing was actually taught to them. They are taught to pass the test and not beyond that. "It has to do with my meager strength to try and pick up such a venture. When the young guys see pictures in black and white it is far from them. Once they see a picture in color it brings them closer to the subject and makes it accessible to him."

Ukrainian collaborators with a Nazi soldier, Photo: Yossi Biran, The Holocaust in color

Jews during the Warsaw ghetto uprising,

In the group, he publishes pictures from the routine life of the Jews in the ghetto, profile pictures of men, women and children who were murdered and recently also the pictures and exploits of the worst in man - those who abused, tortured and murdered masses of Jews.

For part of the period, he was assisted by Sharon Atias Arbel.

Byrne says that he invests quite a few resources in the matter, both financially and in terms of time, and was happy to receive assistance due to the fact that many schools turn to him to use his publications.

"At this stage I continue. I am a small and simple Jew who tries to mention and perpetuate in order to pass on the story of the Jewish people to the younger generation as well as to future generations in general."

Jürgen Stroop, General Haas.

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Who eradicated the Warsaw ghetto uprising., Photo: Yossi Biran, The Holocaust in color

Soldier S.

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Belonging to the battle group (Kampfgruppe) von Gutberg, a young partisan curator, Photo: Yossi Biran, The Holocaust in color

A forced laborer, Julian Majka, surrounded by German soldiers and an SS officer.

At the foot of an improvised gallows, a few minutes before his execution., Photo: Yossi Biran, The Holocaust in Color

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