'The Death Pit' is an adaptation of Chapter One of my book Photographing the Holocaust: Interpretations of the Evidence (I.B. Tauris, 2004). It tells the story of a photograph of a "death pit" which shows (we assume) a group of naked men a boy awaiting their execution. The image is widely used in Holocaust museums and exhibitions but who took it and why, and what exactly it shows, are questions rarely considered - the subject of this article.