The Guardian includes a very interesting article today by Janina Struk about one of the most shocking photographs taken during the Second World War. The picture shows soldiers about to execute a group of naked men and boys. Struk points out, historians have been unable to identify the country of the soldiers or the victims. However, she points out that by the use of captions and cropping of the photograph, the picture has been used over the years by various different groups. It is an article that could be used profitably in a lesson on how photographs can be used as propaganda. Struk ends the article with the claim that the photograph in one sense, tells us nothing (we will never know the names of the perpetrators or the victims). However, in another sense, it tells us so much about the history of the Second World War and its aftermath.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/st...1131825,00.html

Indeed a fascinating article. I was particularly intrigued by the evidence of the careless (careful?) use of caption and cropping as the photo has been appropriated for various purposes.



I found myself pondering this from an aesthetic perspective: it is a better 'framed' photograph without the blurred 'uniformed man'. Has this (commanding?) uniformed man been spared history's judgement for aesthetic reasons? I read on because I hoped for answer. Unfortunately, it never came.

In an otherwise excellent article about how easily we accept the 'given' provenance of documents this comment was unfortunate:



The World at War was a ITV (Thames) production not the BBC. I think.

I have to confess that I can hardly look at this photograph.
I had a Polish friend that told me that in his family WWII was a forbidden subject. Their parents never talk about it. They couldn't stand it.
Some of my relatives that remained long periods, 8 or 10 years, in Franco's jails didn't talk about war an prison yet.
The closer you are to horror the less you want to talk about it.

You are absolutely right! Some resistance fighters from WW2 still have a hard time talking about what they have expierenced.