Fotos aéreas de Auschwitz

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Fotos aéreas de Auschwitz

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Aerial photographs
of Auschwitz taken by the Allied Air Forces during World War II were
first exposed in 1978 by Dino Brugioni and Robert Poirer, two aerial
photo- analysts who worked for the CIA. Using historical research
material, they re-analyzed aerial photographs housed in the Defense
Intelligence Agency Archives in Washington.  Yad Vashem was able to
acquire copies of some of these photographs in 1980 with Elie Wiesel’s
help, and when former US president Carter visited Israel in that same
year, he brought copies of the original film reels.  The Allied Air
Forces came to the Auschwitz area because of
the important war industry located in
this region of Upper Silesia (Polish
territory which was annexed to the Third Reich in 1939).  In early
1944, there were intelligence reports of a giant fuel and artificial
rubber factory in Monowitz.  On April 4th, 1944, a Mosquito plane from
60 Photo Recon Squadron  of the South African Air Force flew out of
Foggia base in Southern Italy to photograph the factory.  It was the
IG Farben factory at Monowitz, only 4km from Birkenau.  In order to
ensure complete coverage of the target, it was common practice to
start the camera rolling ahead of time, and stop it slightly over
time.  As a result, the Auschwitz camp was photographed for the first
time.  During that same period,
the Allies had commenced planning a
comprehensive attack on the German fuel industry, and the Monowitz
factory was high up on the list of targets.  On May 31st, a
second plane from 60 Squadron  was sent to the area.  This time, it
also took three photographs of Birkenau from an
altitude of
26,000ft, although the photo-analysts did not identify the camp.  The
photographs from this sortie show us the camp as it looked 3 days
after the arrival of the deportation documented in the Auschwitz
Album. 

For various
operational reasons, the bombing of the Monowitz factory was delayed
but the Allied air forces
continued to gather intelligence information about this factory and
other installations in the area.  The South African Mosquito planes
photographed the factory and parts of the camp complex on June 26th,
August 25th and September 8th.