Description
I.SS Totenkopf Verbände Ersatz-Sturmbann Breslau photoalbum. This was a relative small unit which makes it hard to find anything from.
The album contains 172 photo’s. Starting in the front with pictures from training exercises in the field, to a visit to the Ehrentempels and Feldherrnhalle in Münich, a privat photo of Himmler in front of the Ehrentempel, typical barracks photo’s, the placing of a large eagle on a building, photo’s with city signs of Polish towns, vehicles, tanks, a crashed plane, a few photo’s from France (maybe taken during a leave of absence?), 8.8 cm flak and other air defense artillery, SS cemetary photos (unresearched so far, they are readable when scanned with high DPI), etc etc. Some pictures appear to be not in order in the album, but all are related.
Please note: shown here are low quality images, these are and can be much sharper if scanned properly.
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The most interesting however, is a page with photo’s of the deportation of jewish people from the town of Sichelberg. I researched this page and it’s history is very interesting and deserves more research, preferably by an official commemorative war institution or museum. The six photo’s of this page show the deportation of jewish people from the town of Sichelberg (nowadays called Sierpc in Poland). The name Sichelberg can be seen on a building in one of the photo’s. Research unveiled the following information:
Before the German army entered Sierpc, a part of the Jewish population fled the town. In the night of 29 to 30 September 1939, German soldiers set the largest synagogue on fire. They accused an 18-year-old Jew, Tarbe, of starting the fire and imposed 70,000 zlotys fine on the Jewish community. On 8 November, displacement of Jews began. A column of people led by German town and district officials left from the Main Square, accompanied by the firemen’s orchestra playing jolly melodies. After reaching the train station, the Jews were put on freight wagons and taken to Pomiechówek, from where they were driven to Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki. The next day they were herded to Jabłonna, from where they were to make their own way to the General Government. Some of those who went into hiding in the town were caught the next day and transported out of the town following the same route.
About 500 Jews, mostly partisans, were kept back in Sierpc. In the spring of 1940, a ghetto was formed for them which encompassed the following streets: Browarna, Górna and Kilińskiego. Szloma Kutner, Mendel Lis and Jakub Pukacz became members of the Judenrat. Unlike the majority of such institutions, this one had a certain authority among the inhabitants of the ghetto. In 1940, some Jews were resettled to the General Government, precisely to Góra Kalwaria, Sokołów Podlaski, Łomazy and Warsaw.
Liquidation of the ghetto began at the end of November and beginning of December 1941. Its inhabitants were transported to Strzegów on 6 January 1942, and from there to Auschwitz and Treblinka. During the relocations many people were shot. Small groups of Jews remained in hiding in Sierpc and its vicinity. Some of them joined partisan units. [Source used: https://sztetl.org.pl/en/towns/s/369-sierpc/99-history/138011-history-of-community]
The six photo’s regarding the deportation in the album correspond with the information above. This is very intense and sad history. While researching the photo’s further it appears on one photo is on a building a streetname. Under more dpi scanning the name of this street can be read and appears to be “Schenken-Strasse 10“, this corresponds again with Sichelberg. When researching online several period postcards of the Schenken-Strasse in Sichelberg, it appears that they show the exact same location. With certainty the six deportation photo’s in the album can thus be attributed to Sichelberg. At least one jewish person in one of the photo’s can be seen wearing a yellow star. These people were transported to Treblinka and never came back. It is photo’s like this, found in the back of a privat photo-album, that show the atrocities of war and the actual victims. This history should never be forgotten or put aside.
I would very much like to see this album end up with a proper war research institute, or specialised museum, or historical researcher. In the right research hands i think the people in the photo’s might be identifyable and given a name.
This album is also an example of one of those items, that show what is still around today. I obtained it from a privat collector who offered it to me and we both had no clue about the contents. At first glance it appeared to be “just” another SS photoalbum, albeit it from a not so common SS unit. While there are many interesting photo’s in the album, only after closer examination the six deportation photo’s stand out the most and are for sure historically the most interesting. They deserve an indept research.
