Wilhelm Brasse was a professional photographer from Poland who refused to declare his loyalty to Adolf Hitler. He was sentenced to 3 years in prison but managed to escape before he was captured again and sent to Auschwitz concentration camp.
In that terrible place, Brasse was forced to shoot various experiments that local doctors conducted over people. In the period from 1940 to 1945, Brasse made more than 40 thousand different shots.
After the end of the war, he wanted to return to his job, but he did not find the strength to use the photo camera again. Brasse had to find another occupation.
Brasse was acquainted to Josef Mengele, a physician who became famous for his eerie experiments on prisoners. Periodically, Wilhelm had to shoot the results of these tortures.
Brasse was also forced to photograph the tortures of prisoners who died under the influence of "Zyclone B" cyanide-based pesticide.
Many years after the end of the war Brasse visited Auschwitz again. He told the visitors about the horrors of the camp. Although Brasse had a camera with him, he didn't manage to make a single photo.
This is Brasess' famous photograph of 14 year old Czeslawa Kwoka. She was one of the "approximately 230,000 children and young people aged less than eighteen" among the 1,300,000 people who were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau from 1940 to 1945.
Wilhelm Brasse died in October 2012, aged 94.