An Auschwitz Album Story shares the extraordinary survivor story of Mike and Joe Kreitenberg and their life-changing discovery in the Auschwitz Album: the only existing photographs of their family and neighbors who were lost in the Holocaust.
The album represents both unimaginable loss and the hope for new beginnings.
An Auschwitz Album Story examines the Auschwitz Album as one of the greatest Jewish artifacts in history, while also recounting the chilling story of Mike and Joe, their miraculous survival from Auschwitz and shocking discovery of their family’s photos in the album. The documentary masterfully weaves together archival footage, in-depth interviews with Kreitenberg family members and experts on the Holocaust and Auschwitz Album, and skilled re-enactments.
Teenagers Mike (16) and Joe (14) Kreitenberg relied on each other to survive Auschwitz. Their father Chaim Eliyah, mother Chaya, brother Yitzhak (18), and sister Suri (14), were all murdered in the camp. Another brother, Sam (20) survived the war in Hungarian Slave Labor.
As the war was nearing its end and the allied forces advanced, Mike and Joe were forced onto a Death March, leading them to the Dora-Nordhausen Concentration Camp. Mike fell gravely ill, and Joe had to leave him behind to move on to Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp, where he was eventually liberated. For the first time since the war began, the brothers were separated.
At the time Joe believed his brother Mike had most likely died, and did not think he would ever see him again. He carried that grief with him into liberation.
Months later, against all odds, the impossible happened. The brothers reunited in a Displaced Persons camp in Budapest, and from there, began their journey together to America.
Today, there are over 100 descendants of the three surviving Kreitenberg brothers – Mike, Joe and Sam. Their legacy will live on for generations to come.
In 1982, Mike’s eldest son, Mitch, read about a new publication called The Auschwitz Album in a newspaper article. The Auschwitz Album is a collection of nearly 200 photographs taken of Jews inside Auschwitz in 1944. It is the only known visual record documenting the process of arrival to the camp through the selection process that determined life or death.
Against Mike’s wishes, Mitch purchased a book and brought it home for his father to review.
When Mike opened the book, he found himself staring bleakly into the past.
His body covered with goosebumps as he discovered a photo of himself, alongside his father and two brothers. In another image, he spotted his mother and sister, captured just before they were sent to the gas chamber. The last time he had seen them was that very day the photo was taken.
The shock was overwhelming. The images forced Mike to confront memories he spent decades trying to bury. They embodied an unfathomable evil and the ugliest side of humanity.
Yet those same photographs became something else: the last visual trace of his family, neighbors, and an entire community erased.
Beyond the Kreitenberg family, the Auschwitz Album has become one of the most powerful symbols of the Holocaust – a permanent reminder to future generations to never forget.
