World War 2, Little Chaim

A Jewish child, Chaim Hersh Kirschenbaum, standing outside on a chair. He was the son of Hanna and Ignatz Kirschenbaum.

Both Chaim and his mother perished in Auschwitz.

The SS officer Kurt Gerstein witnessed the mass gassing of the Jews in the death camps. He later recalled how a five-year-old girl dropped a necklace and a three-year-old boy picked it up as they passed into the chamber. The victims were crammed in so tightly they could not move.

Men, women, children filed past in ghastly parade as a burly SS man promised in a loud, priestlike voice that nothing terrible was going to happen to them. "All you have to do is breathe in deeply. That strengthens the lungs. Inhaling is a means of preventing infectious diseases. It's a good method of disinfection ..."