Auschwitz prisoner photo, how common are they?

[Wiking]

I have this photo, don´t know why i bought it, it feels sort of wierd and wrong to own it, but i do admit i have a fascination of things like this, i have for example a piece of an executioners axe at home, 300+ years old. Things with a macabre story behind it, that attracts me, not getting me a hard on, just that they tell a story is what interest me. Hard to explain so i´ll just throw it out, i payed quiet a lot for this, and according to the guy in the photostore the photo is old, now he didn´t do a CSI kind of test, he said for sure it´s old cause there was something with the development fluids that wasn´t in use since a long time. What im thinking is how many of these is circulating out there and who got them, shouldnt there be tons of records these pictures was originally placed in, or did someonejust grab a bunch of photos? Maybe a retoric question, but if someone knows more let me know please. I have searched the net for info about the man on the picture, all i found was this, copied the info from another site:"


Auschwitz, Poland, Prisoner no. 21986.
Share:
roman_m: Liberbon (Liberbaum), Symcha ur.1893-07-20 (Turbia), zawód: szewc, zm. 4.11.1941 w KL Auschwitz

Birth and death dates, im not sure if Liberbon/Liberbaum is the name, could not find a translation for it. First this is the photo i own:



This picture is borrowed from yadwashem.org, same man. But if i do have the original photo, thats what i was told back when i bought it, did they make copies themselves in the camp, or is it a well made post-war copy, developed on old paper with old procedures so it would look genuine? How did Yad scan that picture if one of them is in my posession? Im thinking about putting it up for sale, but if it turns out it is a common item to fake i dont wanna fool anyone, hate the scams myself.

[Larry C]

Hello Wiking I am gonna guess that the photo you bought is a copy, compared to the one below from Yadweshem. Your photo has qualities of being enlarged and a bluish type back ground which is the line screen in the photo enlarged. The original photo does not have a line screen. compared the 2 to each other and you will see a difference in definition and half tones. This is possible that it was copied post war. Unfortunately.. the black adhesive remnants on the back mean nothing,, but could of come out of someones photo album of a family member and all they could acquire was a copy of the individual above from the Yadweshem org. IMO I feel this is not a period copy as these photos during the Third Reich era were not handed out to anyone and were considered sensitive files belonging to the Reich govt.
I am hopeful for more comments on this photo. Thanks for posting it. In all due respect please respect the sensitivity of the individual in this photo and the Holocaust! Regards Larry

[Wiking]

Thank you for your answer! Well, i guess it was learning money then. But thats ok, somehow it still feels strange to have it, but i will keep it and it will stay in my album with other photos, until someone might buy it.

[Larry C]

It would be best to be taken to a professional photographic expert for an in hand opinion,, if there is any doubt. That would be the best direction to go in. Photos posted here on the forum are more harder to discern than actually in hand. A closer look of the back of the photo parer should reveal some characteristics known to a photographer that knows old style photos. best regards Larry

[Walkwolf]

Looks like a recent copy, glued onto and then torn away
from black backing material to give the impression
it was mounted in an 'old' album.........

[Wiking]

Oh lucky me! Well it stays as a reminder then, i cant sell it as real now if i know its a copy, too much honesty in me. But still, the guy at the local photo store said he was sure it was aged paper, but on the other hand it wouldnt be to hard to find such..

[tempelhof]

appears also to my eyes to be a copy. contrast is typical of copies.

[StefanM]

There are a lot of "genuine vintage photo-print copies" of various Auschwitz inmate photos in circulation. They are not the original photo strips.

However, many were obtained diectly from the Auschwitz museum archives and were often used in artwork production for the thousands of books and films about the subject.

Prisoner families could obtain photographic copies of these originals for their own use and these would have been produced using traditional wet photographic process of the period ie copy negative used to produce copy print ......pre-digital age all photo reproduction was produced this way .

I myself have quite a large number of genuine vintage Auschwitz inmate photo strips produced by and stamped on the reverse by the Auschwitz museum archive which were produced this way for an old Auschwitz book project. So I don't think your photo has necessarliy been produced to deceive, it could just be a genuine vintage copy photo that was previously stuck in an album at one time and later removed.

[Paul D]

Looks like a recent copy, glued onto and then torn away
from black backing material to give the impression
it was mounted in an 'old' album.........

Steve is quite correct , it's a fake photo and the faker has used the album backing to add to this !! See if you can return it and educate the photo shop guy !!

[Wiking]

Well i paid 40 usd for it lol Gonna frame it and look at it every day and consider it my first crash course in the think twice education