Luca Crippa > Quotes

“Brasse saw Karol’s back on the table. It was held down by weights at the edges and seemed in good condition. His knees began to tremble. He tried to say something, but his voice caught in his throat. He could only speak after several attempts. “Who did this?” His friend didn’t reply. He lowered his eyes in silence. The photographer, in shock, thought about what it must have been like to have to skin a man. He leaned over and vomited on the ground. Morawa held him up and pulled him away, out of the crematorium. “Was it Entress who told you to cut the tattoo off this man?” Brasse pressed. “Yes. He came in person.” “What did he say to you?” Morawa looked him straight in the eyes. “He told me to treat the skin carefully and preserve it well, because it’s going to be used as the binding for a book. He said that. And he repeated it. Do you understand? A man died because a mad doctor wants to bind a book.”
― Luca Crippa, The Auschwitz Photographer: The Forgotten Story of the WWII Prisoner Who Documented Thousands of Lost Souls