27 February 2012 Last updated at 01:39

In pictures: Auschwitz-Birkenau, then and now

A new publication by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland shows photographs taken in the extermination camp during World War II alongside pictures of the same locations today. More than a million people - most of them Jewish - were murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz-Birkenau during World War II.

The moment of selection. An SS doctor divides deported Jews into those capable of working, who will be registered in the camp, and those incapable who will be murdered in the gas chamber shortly.

The wartime photographs were taken by members of the German SS in 1944 and appear in The Auschwitz Album (or Lili Jacob Album), which contains nearly 200 photographs showing the arrival of a transport of Hungarian Jews at the Birkenau camp. The pictures document each stage of processing - from departure from the train and the march to the gas chambers, to the looting of property and the selection of people spared immediate death to work in camp. The only stage not recorded is the extermination in the gas chambers.

The moment of selection for work or death. Prams are visible behind the truck. In the distance a column of people walks in the direction of the gas chambers.

The photographer of the present-day pictures, Paweł Sawicki, noted that a detailed analysis of the historical photographs was necessary in order to find the same places and to get to know the working methods of the German author. "It turned out that most of the pictures in the Auschwitz Album were taken from an elevated position, which had to be taken into account,” said Mr Sawicki.

The holding camp for Jewish women from Hungary. The fourth person from left in the first row of the right-hand column is Lili Jacob, who found the album containing the black and white photographs, after her liberation.

"However, the project was not about creating faithful replicas of the historical photographs," added Mr Sawicki. "It was rather about reminding the viewer in a profound manner about all that took place here, in this very place. While taking the photographs one after another, I could sense the peculiar emptiness more and more. The people, who are the essence of the pictures in the album, were missing. Today, they are not here any more, only the place where they were murdered remains."

Men lined up on the road between the holding camp for Jewish women from Hungary (sector BIIc) and the men's camp (sector BIId).

"Setting the pictures depicting the tragedy of a Jewish transport in 1944 against the pictures of places we can visit today is shocking," said Marek Zajac, the Secretary of the International Council of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum. "I know the famous Lili Jacob Album very well, and I also know every preserved fragment of the Birkenau camp, but Pawel Sawicki's work made me see even more. When I walk through the camp now, I see something completely different from what I used to see."

Women and children categorized during selection as incapable of working.

The book, Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Place Where You Are Standing, contains 31 wartime pictures, matched to their present-day locations. It has been published in Polish and English versions by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.

In Pictures

In pictures: Auschwitz-Birkenau, then and now

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