In 1945, an American officer found an album of photos in a bombed-out Frankfurt apartment. They appeared to be of ordinary men and women, except that nearly all of them were wearing SS uniforms. The owner of the album was the man on the right: Karl-Friedrich Höcker. He was adjutant to the man on the left, Richard Baer, the commandant of Auschwitz from May 1944 until the Russians arrived in 1945. This photo was taken a few weeks after Baer and Höcker arrived at Auschwitz. A glass has left a mark on the page – as if the American officer sometimes took the photos out to show friends

Photograph: United States Holocaust Museum