This is one of the hardest photos we’ve restored and colored, and perhaps one of the most necessary. These two men are showing their liberators what their work was like as part of the Sonderkommando at Dachau camp. But what was the Sonderkommando? Thread:

✡️Ruth Steinfeld Born in Sinsheim (Germany) in 1933. She was deported, separated from her parents, to the Gurs french internment camp and survived the Holocaust. Later she knew that her parents were both deported and murdered at Auschwitz concentration camp.

This is the only video we’ve colorized (at least for now). It’s also one of the most harrowing depictions of the Holocaust: The Gusen nazi concentration camp after its liberation.

🔻Antoni Kwarta Born in Boreczek, Poland, on December 29, 1909. A Catholic priest, he was deported to Auschwitz in 1942 as a political dissident and later transferred to Dachau. He survived.

✡️Henryk Mandel Born in Olkusz, Poland, on December 15, 1922. Deported to Auschwitz in 1944 at only 22 years old, he was forced to work in the camp's gas chambers and crematorium as part of the Sonderkommando.

✡️Marie de Vries Born on January 2nd, 1924 in Amsterdam. From a jewish family, she worked in a jewish mental hospital in Apeldoorn. In 1943 she was deported along with all the patients to the Auschwitz death camp. She couldn't survive.

🔻José Sáez Cutanda Born in Albacete on October 27, 1919. Enlisted in the Spanish Civil War as a Republican combatant, he eventually went into exile in France, where he was taken to the internment camps of Saint-Cyprien, Vernet, and Septfonds. Deported to Mauthausen. Survived.

🔻Jan Pierzchała Born in Kraków, Poland, on May 15, 1912. Deported to Auschwitz in 1940 as one of the first prisoners (number 55) and later transferred to Neuengamme, Płaszów, Gross-Rosen, and Flossenbürg. He managed to survive.

🔻Maria Maranges Born in Prats i Montferrer (Catalonia, Spain) on August 4, 1920. Exiled after the Spanish Civil War (in which she lost her two brothers), she joined the French Resistance. Deported to the Ravensbrück camp and later transferred to Bergen-Belsen. Liberated.

✡️Tatiana Bucci Born in Fiume, Italy, in 1937. Deported to Auschwitz in 1944 with her sister, mistaken for twins by Dr. Mengele and spared the gas chamber. She survived. We've colored her photo, in which she was with her sister.

✡️Eva Salusová Born in Czechoslovakia on January 30, 1929. Coming from a Jewish family, she was deported along with her mother to Theresienstadt first and later to the Auschwitz concentration camp. She died. This is the only photo that remains of her.

Stanisław Szczepanik Born in Chybie on June 4, 1914. A football player, he was deported to Auschwitz on August 25, 1943. Transferred to Mauthausen in 1944. He perished.

Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, colorized photograph. The camp was liberated on April 15, 1945. Despite not being an extermination camp and having no gas chambers, over 50,000 prisoners died inside due to the living conditions.

Her name was ✡️Monique Cofman. She was born on May 3, 1939, in France. She was only 3 years old when the Nazis killed her after the "Selection" at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Along with her, 773 other people were murdered that day.

✡️ Benjamin Bloemendal was born in Amsterdam on May 2, 1938. Coming from a Jewish family, he was deported to Auschwitz with his mother at just four years old. They were both murdered upon arrival. This is the only known photograph of him.

A prisoner reveals the emaciated condition of his companion at the Nordhausen concentration camp. In the camps, those in such a state were referred to as "Muselmann" (pl. "Muselmänner")—a term used for those on the brink of death due to starvation and exhaustion.

Wanda Ferko-Pawłowska Born in Zabrzeg, Poland, on March 12, 1926. A Romani woman, she was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp at the age of 16 and later transferred to the women's camp of Ravensbrück. She was eventually liberated.

Several SS guards are forced to carry and bury the bodies of dead prisoners at the Bergen-Belsen nazi concentration camp. Although it was not an extermination camp, more than 50,000 prisoners died there in just under two years.

✡️Anita Brandeisová Born in Prague on October 2, 1936. Of Jewish origin, she was deported from the Theresienstadt ghetto to the Auschwitz concentration camp. She was murdered immediately upon arrival after the Selection.