Research Catalog

Ikonen der Vernichtung : öffentlicher Gebrauch von Fotografien aus nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslagern nach 1945

Title: Ikonen der Vernichtung : öffentlicher Gebrauch von Fotografien aus nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslagern nach 1945 / Cornelia Brink.
Author: Brink, Cornelia.
Publication: Berlin : Akademie, ©1998.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Use in library	D805.G3 B722 1998	Off-site

Details

Description

266 pages : illustrations; 25 cm

Summary

Analyzes photographs of the concentration camps taken by Allied military and civilian photographers immediately after the liberation of the camps in 1945, and their use in West Germany. Criticizes their perception as authentic representations of reality, without consideration of who took them and with what motive; for what purpose they were used in 1945 and later; and how they were received. The Allies disseminated the pictures in newspapers, brochures, and placards in order to confront the Germans with their crimes; the reaction was either rejection or horror, but in either case disassociation from the crimes, which were committed by "them", not "us". Pictures and films were used in war crimes trials, but played a secondary role. In 1960, Gerhard Schoenberner's "Der gelbe Stern" became the first, and still the best known, of many collections of Holocaust photographs. It shows types - "the" camp, "the" perpetrator, "the" victim, and tends to differentiate between the passive and therefore guiltless German people and the Nazi leaders. Photographs are also part of educational exhibitions at memorial sites. Again the use of horror photographs is counterproductive: children cannot cope with them and repress them. The traditional photographs show Jews as anonymous victims; they must be complemented by pictures showing the rich Jewish life before the Holocaust. Pictures of Jews in their degradation may also arouse in the viewer the same voyeurism that motivated the Nazi photographer. Mentions ways in which museum staff have tried to deal with these problems. But the repeated use of the same photographs has turned them into icons about which we cease to think.

Subject

Genre/Form

Bildband.
Hochschulschrift.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (p. [243]-264).

ISBN

3050032111
9783050032115

LCCN

99165564
9783050032115

OCLC

ocm40380199
40380199
SCSB-9394407

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library