Today, the New York Times makes available photographs obtained by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum from the other side of Auschwitz: not the familiar images of starving prisoners, but new shots of vivacious German officers. It churns the stomach to envision the high life these Germans enjoyed while participating in the murder of over one million people.

Karl Höcker, the adjutant to the camp commandant, compiled the scrapbook. The photos, which include the first authenticated images of the notorious Dr. Josef Mengele at the camp, feature Höcker lighting a towering Christmas tree and a singalong of SS men at their Alpine retreat. But perhaps the most shocking depicts members of the SS female auxiliary poised on a wooden fence eating fresh blueberries...

...The Times reports that Holocaust Museum in Washington has no plans, as of now, to exhibit the photos, but you can view them online here.