Polish photographer Wilhelm Brasse, who was imprisoned by Nazis and put to work as a photographer in Auschwitz, as he was not a Jew, died on Tuesday in Zywiec, a town in southern Poland. Brasse never returned to photography after the World War II, as he said he had nightmares of the naked Jewish girls and children whom he had to photograph for documentation, before the notorious Dr. Josef Mengele experimented upon them. Even though Polish, Brasse was kept cleaner than other prisoners at Auschwitz were so that he did not offend the elite SS Nazis.

Brasse was born in Poland in 1917, but was sent to Auschwitz as a political prisoner at the age of 22, for trying to escape Germany-occupied Poland. His experience of working in a photography studio in Katowice saved his life, as he was put to work in the Auschwitz camp’s photography and identification department.

In an interview with AP in 2006, Brasse said that according to his estimates he had taken at least 40,000 to 50,000 of the identity camera shots Nazis used to register and identify prisoners. Some of those pictures are among the most notorious images associated with the prison camp at Auschwitz. Brasse told AP that as a prisoner, he had no opportunity to refuse what Dr. Mengele or other Nazis required him to do. At least Brasse, who died at the age of 95, could claim that learning photography actually saved his life.

While talking to AP about his feelings over his actions of documenting prisoners at Auschwitz, he said, “It was an order, and prisoners didn’t have the right to disagree. I couldn’t say ‘I won’t do that.’” According to him, “I only listened to what I had to do and because I didn’t harm anyone by what I was doing.”

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