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Today, #HolocaustRemembranceDay, marks the 74th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. A small #thread on some of the most important photographs to bear witness to this atrocity 👇🏼
These photographs were taken by a member of the Sonderkommando and smuggled out in a tube of toothpaste by the Polish resistance. They belong to the @AuschwitzMuseum (there should be a 4th image, but I couldn't find it this morning). 
Georges Didi-Huberman describes this process in detail in his book, 'Images in Spite of All.' If you happen to be a French speaker, I would recommend this book en Francais, as it was originally written.
Didi-Huberman outlines the ways in which these photographs were later cropped and retouched in order to more clearly convey the subject. In the process, the essence of the objects--that they were taken under extreme risk of the photographer--is lost. Objects matter.
Ilsen About and Clement Cheroux write about the altering, use, and misuse of photographs in their article, 'L’histoire par la photographie.' They use images of the Holocaust as an extreme example of the stakes of misusing photographs.
About & Cheroux' article is en francais only, as far as I know. DM me if you'd like a copy of it. They argue that if we misuse photos, we obscure the event portrayed. In the case of the Holocaust, we put our work at risk of scrutiny of deniers.
Circling back to D-H: we must view these particular photographs (in their original state) because of the inherent risks taken, because they deserve it, because they were "snatched from hell, in spite of all."
"In return, we must contemplate them, take them on, and try to comprehend them...in spite of our own inability to look at them..." (p3).
"Burning of Bodies."
"Burning of Bodies."
"Women driven to gas chambers."
Finally, another resource for everyone - images of the Lodz Ghetto taken by Henryk Ross, whose archive is now housed at the @agotoronto and whose work was masterfully shown by curator Maia-Mari Sutnik in 2015. You can view the work here: agolodzghetto.com
Here's "Women driven to the gas chambers" one more time - not sure why that one didn't work before.
