The first post in the new Prentwerk
photoblog is rather different from what I had anticipated. I was planning to do
a bit on Erik Kessels and ‘found photography’, but all of a sudden a
publication of a very different nature came my way. And quite a serious one it is, too. Nothing glossy, nothing artistic or nothing conceptual about it. Poorly reproduced photographs
printed on cheap paper, published with one aim only: exposing the Nazi atrocities of
World War Two.
I find there is something slightly uncomfortable about this
change of subject, something to do with ‘art’ and ‘life’, and perhaps a vague sense of shame for concentrating on 'art', while at the same time unimaginable atrocities like these are going on in the world, even today. Photography
is not only about art, is it? At any rate, it shouldn’t be. It should capture life as well,
even at its most unpleasant. If it is doesn’t, what’s the use? But I’ll have to
think that over, I suppose.
The publication in question is a small,
flimsy catalogue published in 1945 to accompany an exhibition of photographs. In
the year following the defeat of the Nazis, exhibitions of photos showing the
horrors of the concentration camps were a way to show people both in Europe and
the US what had been done by the Germans and their allies, and, eventually, to
build support for the idea of war crimes trials. Apparently, one such
exhibition was organized in the Netherlands, although the brochure states
neither place nor publisher. We are merely informed that the photographs were provided
by the U.S.I.S. (United States Information Service, Photographic Section,
Amsterdam) and Jan Schiet, photographer, Amsterdam. Despite the title, however,
there are no pictures nor text referring to Arnhem, the Dutch city on the Rhine
that was the scene of the failed operation Market Garden in 1944. The Arnhem
material may have appeared only in the exhibition itself. It seems likely that
the photographs of the destruction of the inner city of Arnhem were all taken
by Jan Schiet, an Amsterdam photographer who is mentioned in a short notice on
the inside cover. But none of them are included here.
The photographs are of a particularly
gruesome nature. They show us what the allied forces found when they liberated
Dachau, Buchenwald and other concentration camps: corpses, starving inmates,
humanity at the verge of despair. Perhaps the most intriguing is the famous and
controversial photo supposedly depicting Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel in
Buchenwald (first published in the New
York Times on May 6, 1945 with the caption Crowded Bunks in the Prison
Camp at Buchenwald’, taken inside Block 56 by Private H. Miller of the Civil
Affairs Branch of the U. S. Army Signal Corps on April 16, 1945.
But this is a
picture with a story. It is the
photograph that Allied Supreme Commander General Dwight David Eisenhower
ordered, in April 1945, to be posted in every German town and city to show the
defeated population the ‘true meaning of Nazism’.
A huge blown-up version then
went on tour in the United States for the same purpose, to impress on the
American people what evil they had gone to war against. It was plastered on the
front pages of newspapers across the country. Thus it became one of the most
iconic images representing WW II and of what later came to be known as the
‘Holocaust’.
It was only much later, however, that the
photograph was exposed as a fake. The standing figure on the right was
not there in the original picture at all. It was added later, for dramatic
effect. Moreover, severe doubts were cast on the true identity of one of the
other men, allegedly Elie Wiesel, celebrated author of books on the Holocaust
and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for 1986, who claimed he recognized himself
in the picture. Fierce controversies arose, fired by his opponents who made it
their mission to denounce Wiesel as a fraud (‘Show us your tattoo!’) and who
even set up special websites to prove their point (see below).
According to my American colleague Dan
Wyman, the only other antiquarian bookseller to offer this title, to whom I am
indebted for some of the information presented here, OCLC lists only 4 copies of
this brochure worldwide, all in the Netherlands (Sept 2015). One of them is in
the library of the Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam.
DESCRIPTION
- Tentoonstelling
van fotografische opnamen van Duitse concentratiekampen en verwoest Arnhem -
¶ No place, no publisher, 1945. Pap,
stapled, 15.5 x 12 cms, 32p, illustrations in bl/w. With 7p of text, containing
78 descriptions of photographs, and 25p of bl/w photographs. Title and text in
Dutch.
- In
good condition, with slight signs of use (small fold in front cover, small tear
and some spotting of back cover.
For a detailed discussion and more
photographs, see
* * *
There is just one thing left to do: to put a price on it. Publications like these are priceless, and yet they have to be priced. Dan Wyman has done so (see www.addall.com/used), but I am not sure. Let us just say the price is 'negotiable'.
