ABSTRACT
In 1986, Sybil Milton estimated that there were over two million photographs of the Holocaust in public archives.1 Today, Yad Vashem claims to have the largest Holocaust-related photographic archive with over 214,000 photographs, c.400 albums, 9,000 collections, and c.130,000 photographs attached to Pages of Testimony.2 Despite such numbers, this photographic record is incomplete, with what we do have standing in for, or pointing towards, what is missing either because no photographs were taken, none survived, or they have yet to enter the public domain. Which photographs documentary filmmakers, curators of museums or publishers use, therefore, depends in part on what is known and accessible at any given time. What is, nevertheless, a substantial photographic record is rarely utilised to the full: there is a tendency to rely on a relatively small number of images, some of which have become iconic, and now function as visual shorthand for the Holocaust or aspects of it. This chapter explores how archival photographs are used (some critics would say misused) in visually representing the Holocaust, reflecting on how this usage evolves over time, with reference to three case studies, each of which was taken from a different perspective for very different purposes: (1) the Sonderkommando photographs (Auschwitz II-Birkenau, summer 1944); (2) the American photographer and filmmaker Julien Bryan’s photograph of Kazimiera Mika taken during the siege of Warsaw (September 1939); and (3) a photograph from the so-called Auschwitz Album of a woman and children walking down the road between sectors BIIc-d in Auschwitz II-Birkenau (May 1944). Each of these images is well known, but they are not all iconic. Of the three, the second, whilst familiar in a Polish context,3 is less well known in Western Europe, Israel and the United States, suggesting that there is national and cultural difference within the visual iconography of the Holocaust. Each case study is part of a sequence of photographs rarely reproduced in full, highlighting the issue of selectivity. This chapter is distinctive both in its use of case studies and exploration of the different strategies in deploying archival photographs adopted within museums, paying particular attention to the approaches in two more recent, and therefore comparatively understudied contexts: the Holocaust Exhibition, Imperial War Museum London (IWM), which opened in June 2000; and the Holocaust History Museum (HHM), which opened in March 2005 and is the centrepiece of the comprehensive redevelopment of Yad Vashem.
