"The photograph: It cannot say what it lets us see."
Roland Barthes
Many different parties created visual documentation during WWII: For the Nazi German regime, visual media played a crucial role in propaganda as a means of expression and a tool for manipulating and mobilizing the masses. This kind of documentation attested to Nazi ideology, and how German leaders sought to mold their image in the public eye. The Allied armies, who understood the propaganda value of photographing the camps they liberated, documented the scenes revealed to them, bringing in official photographers and encouraging soldiers to document the Nazi horrors as evidence for future war crimes trials and in an effort to re-educate the German population.
However, for Jews, photography was a component in the struggle for their very survival, as well as a manifestation of underground activity that testified to a desire to document and transmit information on the tragedy befalling their people.
"Since I had a camera in my official position, I could commemorate the entire tragic period that passed through the Lodz ghetto. I did this with the understanding that should I be caught, I and my family would be tortured and murdered."
Jewish photographer Henryk Ros
Many of the images created during WWII have become collective symbols of the Holocaust. Photographs and films served as evidence in the Nuremberg Trials and later in trials of Nazi war criminals. The Eichmann trial at the beginning of the 1960s and its extensive exposure in the media aroused great interest in the visualization of the Holocaust. Since the mid-1980s, visual documentation has become an inseparable part of Holocaust research and the historical discussion of this period. A large variety of documentaries, exhibitions and educational programs on the Holocaust are created and inspired by visual materials and rely heavily upon them.
On 24 January 2018, a new exhibition, entitled "Flashes of Memory: Photography during the Holocaust," opened at Yad Vashem to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Displayed throughout this exhibition are some 1,500 photographs and 13 films created during the Holocaust by Nazi Germany, the Jews in the ghettos and the Allied liberators, as well as original newspaper clippings, albums, diaries, and a number of original cameras from the period.
The opening ceremony was held in the Yad Vashem Synagogue, a few meters from the Temporary Exhibitions Pavilion, where the exhibition is displayed. "This outstanding and special exhibition invites us to see things from a different angle and an altered viewpoint," said Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev. He pointed out the widespread taking, sharing and manipulation of photographs by today's younger generation, and invited them to view the photographs from the wartime period in light of this phenomenon. "We have become accustomed to being continually exposed to visual media," said Shalev. "We have all turned into active participants in creating and consuming it. Photographed scenes are streamed and networked, filling our visual world. This is the perspective by which I view the photographs displayed in this unique exhibition. The more I look at them, the stronger I feel that this exhibition presents the members of the 'Selfie' generation with an exclusive experience, different from that undergone by observers from earlier generations. The photographs enable a quiet and deep observation. It is not enough to 'understand' these photographs on the cognitive plane. One can and must feel them."
Dr. Daniel Uziel, Head of Yad Vashem's Photo Section and Historical Advisor of the exhibition, concurred:
"The exhibition is directed, first and foremost, at the intellect, and not at the heart," he said. "It demands from the viewer what is demanded from historians – to understand the context."
Therefore, in addition to the exhibits themselves, "Flashes of Memory" provides the visitor with a critical examination of documentation through the camera lens, focusing on the circumstances of the photograph and the personal orientation of the photographer.
"The act of photography is the beginning of the process, never the end. The camera, with its manipulative power, has tremendous impact and far-reaching influence. Although photography pretends to reflect reality as it is, it is in fact an interpretation of it, for elements such as worldview, values and moral perception influence the choice of the photographed object and the manner in which it is presented. Above all, this exhibition emphasizes images taken by Jewish photographers. Unlike the two other sources, these express compassion and empathy, and identify most directly with the victims of the Holocaust."
Vivian Uria, the exhibition's curator and Director of the Museums Division.
“Flashes of Memory: Photography During the Holocaust” is generously supported by Sadia and Simy Cohen.
This article originally appeared in the "Yad Vashem Jerusalem Magazine," volume 85.
