ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses some of the key debates surrounding photography, memory and history with particular reference to artists whose work addresses the Holocaust. It discusses the ethics of witnessing in relation to David Levinthal’s series Mein Kampf. The chapter considers Alan Schechner’s ‘Self Portrait at Buchenwald: It’s the Real Thing’. In this photograph Schechner uses the photographic archive and digital technology to draw attention to the way in which the reproduction and circulation of Holocaust photographs always take place under particular ideologically inflected conditions. The chapter looks at Marc Adelman’s Stelen as a way of engaging with contemporary debates around technology and multidirectional memory. The writings of Marianne Hirsch, which privilege the role of photography and visual media in acts of remembrance, are considered. History, borders, and ethnic and national belonging are no longer the only forms of social and symbolic integration. A memory that harbours the possibility of transcending ethnic and national boundaries.
