Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data. Zelizer, Barbie.
Remembering to forget : Holocaust memory through the camera's eye /. Ba¡bie
Zelizer. P. cm ...
REMEMBERING TO FORGET THROUGH THE CAMERA'S EYE
BARBIE ZELTZER
S?o't ,3, 2.w; \ 11?
CONTENTS
Bnnsr
¡
Z
e
t t z e p,
is associate professor at
tle Amenberg School of Com-
Acknowledgmenæ vii
at the University of Pemsylvania. A columist for tle Norion, she is tlre coautlor of ,{lnost ùlidnight:Reþrminï the Lote-NigÄ¿ N¿ws md author of Covering the Body:The Kenned! Assossinotion, the Medio, and the Shaping oJ Collective
mmietion
Memory,
rJr.e
latter published by tlre University of Chicago Press
I
Collective Memories, Images, and the Atrocity ofWar
The University of Chiego Press, Chiægo 60637 The University ofChiego Press, Ltd., London O I 998 byThe university of Chicago
I
All rights reserved. Published 1 998 Printed in
tle United
070605 04030201
II
States ofAmerica
009998 s+321
ISBN (cloth) : 0-226-97 97
2-
Before the Liberation
s
Journalism, Photography, and the
Eaily
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Coverage oJ Atrocity
t6
Zelizer, Barbie Remembering to forget : Holocaust memory through the camera's eye Ba¡bie Zelizer P. cm' Includes bibliographiml references md index. ISBN 0-226-97972-5 (alk. paper)
/
Holoeust, Jewish ( 1939-1945)-Pictorial works. 2. Holocaut, Jewish (1 939-1 945>-Press coverage. 3. World Wu, 1939-1945-Concenûuion mps-Liberation-Euop*Pictorialworla. 4.WorldWa¡ 1939 l9+SConcenEation camps-Libemtion-Europ*Press coverage. I. Tide.
ltI Covering Atrocity in Word 49
I.
1998 18--lc2l
D8M.32.2+S 940 53'
used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Info¡mation $sig¡ss5-pg¡6mence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI 239.48-1984.
OThe paper
98-18164
clt
IV Covering Atrocity in Image 86
v Forgetting to Remember Photography as Grounil oJ Early
Atrocit/ Memories 141
.CKNO\¡/LEDGMENTS Hartman' Richard Heffner'Nick all Jamieson, AmY Jordan, Tamar Y
Yosefa LoshitzkY, CarolYn Marvin'
Sanka¡ Michael
Victor Navasky, Marion Rodgers, Itzhak Roeh' ,Pamela Sari Thomas' John Tiyneski' Schudson, rur.írn" Seifert, Rãbert Snyder, Wieviorka' For technical Valenci, Liliane Wåissberg, aná Annette
Collective Memories, Images, and the Atrocity ofWar
Lucette Anderson' Chanan Beizer' Sharon and research assistance, I thankÌerry Huxfotd' Daiwon Huyun' Richard Black, Debra Conr¡ Janice Fisher, John Isomaki, Selcan KaYnak, Oren MeYer ious forums t}at have invited me to s more College, Loughborough Uni
der, Northwestern Universit¡
.,lt:: .
,iri ll.'l il
,
-
Work-S versity Center Davis Center for Historical Studies
and my sister' Judy University. I thank my mother, Dorot}y Zelizet' for helping to family extended Shifrin, u, *"ll u, otÌt", members of my
inevitably popped up focused. I also thank numerous îriends who one least exPects it' Although when life intervened, as it tends to do when would not have been I cannot thank them all, they know that this book through diffrwithout Aeit ittc'e¿iUte friendship and support
keep
PUBLISHED PosrHuMousLY AFTER woRLD II, the cultural critic Walter Benjamin contended that images of
TN wRrrlNGS
I*".
public events merit attention because they offer a compressedrnor4l guide io, th" future. "Every image of the past that is not recognized by the present as one of its own concerns," he said, "threatens to disappear irretrievably."l This book stems from Benjamin's observation. It begins with a number
;"
"or.rpt"a"a cult times. and Gideon I dedicate this book to my t}ree children-Noa' Jonatlan' in a very pursuits academic my Glick. As always, their presence grounds this projustifred future the for real fashion. Túeir vitality, ;o¡ ut'ã hopes conmust we tìat them like ject in urgent ways. It it iot th"- and others them for is it And form' sider t}e representation of atrocity in its fullest to Forget' so t}at our Rem^embering stáp to how out that we must frgure come' o"ity can make a difference for generations to
representatio.råf
"t
haunting visual memories of the Holocaust and war atrocity were Produced by tlìe photographic record of tìe camps' liberation. These memories linger, in scholar Saul Friedlander's words, as an "indelible reference the Western imagination'"2 Yet what kind of reference point did they provide? As we stand at cen-
point of
have provided only a thin veneer of knowledge about the camps and the atrocities that took place inside. How were those Êrst images of the
But
tley
camps produced and presented? By whom and under which circumstances? How were tley received and to what effect?And most importantl¡ when, wh¡ how, and to what purPoses were they co-opted into memory? In what ways have they persisted as vehicles of collective memor¡ both about t}re Holocaust and about t}re ravages of war? Questions like these are worth answering because the images of tìe concenûation camps--called the World War II "atrocity photos" by post-
iconic representation of war atrocity and human evil. But the questions are difÊcult to answer because they
u¡¿¡
s¡ltiqs-þave become
a lasting
1
CHAPTER ONE tos to link past and
our underscore a broader lack in abo enough We still do not know
ies for PhotograPhic maniPula-
about photos has grown' the
have questions we kn
tion
o'
mages function a¡ v^ehicles :-t"-T. *"y conve¡ientlv freeze scenes rn our memory. Beyond recognìzing.*": fully to rememoerini' we do not yet minds and serve as building blocks us re understand how images heIP In did not experience personally'
r'",",'t,t;"';'
:";"-:"k
on collective mem-
a tool "not of retrieval but The book thereby views collective memory as of reconfrguratioí ¡rf,".¡ colonizes the-¡eg-þV gÞlgry i! !o ço:t{g'I" !9 PTe-
sent confi gurations.."3
--H"* ;tgËãrk
o., collective memory shed light on visual memories memory takes on of the Holo"caust?When viewed as a collective activit¡ remembering. It opens up characteristics that distinguish it from individual a multiple-sided jigsaw the terrain that is remeribered and turns it into
we ever-Present agents of collective
threatens to loom larger t}e coming century' rnor" ,ophirticated a¡rd diverse over and historical mechanics of t'is'i"l memory This book "¿¿'"""'ã" record at their broadest level' Adm memory problem
And
it
l
n, and omission of details abolrt the so as to accommodate past, often pushing aside accuracy and authenticity and political authority' and power formation, broader issues of identity act-of recalÌ simple the only not become view affrliation. Memories in tiús
about an image's viabilitY to Pr Holocaust, to other cases where
butsocial,cultural,andpoliticalactionatitsbroadestlevel"'notthingswe little] existence beyond think about, but things *" *ti"L with, [possessing .", p.ftd*, orr, ,oiul relations, and our histories'"As scholar Geoffrey "a gradually forHuråIì.r, has observed, collective memories constitute
ities in Places like Bosnia and the HoLcaust, suggesting tha
malized agr way that do
have affe
broad resonance suggests that connect events in unPredictable
ïhat
Remembeting to Forget is
of collective
mories might memories, however, an analysis of th memocollective that instance' for knoq prompt us to know more' We and-are changing' ever are end, ries lack an identifiable beginning and
oftenaccomplishedamidth'".,,i'',ofearlierrecollections-¿s\áþgnhisdown to tory books are rewritten or statues of former heroes taken
concerned'
THE SHAPE OF COLLECTIVE
Because
ed events in a
REMEMBERING
accommodatenewtargetsofemulation'Collectivememoriesimplicit\ a choice value tìe negation of ãhe act, where forgetting reflects :o Put rres are matters' aside what nã lottg"t
wh unpredictable, ofa-"r, "pp"".ing neåe.sarily stable, lineaa ratioinal, the past in unanticipated ways, as when Bush unexpectedly invoked World War I
,"lt 1*of
ieces
U.S. involvement in tìe Persian G rlf in tive memories are partial. No single memory reflects all that is known
-r
CHAPTER ONE
MEMOR
coLLECTIVE
"vibrate." Dissipating the notion t}rat one memory at one place and one -time retáins authority over all the otlers, collective-memory studies presume multiple, often conflicting accounts of t}le past. The important issue becomes "not how accurately a recollection Êtted some piece of a past real-
it¡
but why historical actors constructed tÀeir memories in a particular way at a particular time." Recognizing conflicting renditions of t}le past necessitates a consideration of tle tensions and contestations through which one rendition wipes out many of the otfrers. Memories become not only tle construction of social, historical, and cultural circumstances, but a reflection of why one construction has more staying power t}ran its rivals. The study of collective memories tìereby represents a graphing of t}le past as
it is woven into the present and future.8
Despite its popularity, however, the study of collective memories has been plagued by a broad range ofunaddressed issues. Some have had to do with memory itself: Which memory? What kind of memory? How complete or authentic a memory? Otlers have focused on the activity of remembering: Who remembers? Why do we remember, how, and with what resources? For r{hom is remembering being accomplished? And others have targeted tìe status of remembering: How does t}le power of memory persist over time? How does it act as evidence for things and events of tlle past? How does it prove or disprove remembered events? And is the issue of proof more or less relevant as time passes? IMAGES IN COLLECTIVE
to verif¡ and which to obscure.'ry
Rtol-deachoftlteseaxesforremembering,collectivememories 4
MEMORY
Much of our ability to remember depends on images. Hailed in classical Rome as a mnemonic device for personal remembering, t-Ire images of social memory borrow from a broad tradition of pictorial depiction that used painting, photograph¡ and ideographic systems of communication to make its messages public. How images work depends largely on their complex linkage with words. InW J.T. Mitchell's view, words and images offer not only two different kinds ofrepresentation but "two deeply contested cultural values." As modes of representation change, both the relationship between words and images changes as well as how we understand images and words in{ependently of each ot}er. Images have in part always depended on words for\ directed interpretation. William Saroyan comments that "one picture is ' worth a thousand words but only if you look at the picture and say or think t}re tlousand words"; the image "invites the w¡itten information which alone can specify its relation to localities, time, individual identit¡ and the otler categories of human understanding."This dependence on words is enhanced and magniÊed in memor¡ where words provide order and con-
5
CHAPTER ONE t}re differently from words; consider nection. But pictures also function dealing In ernica'
emotions with the most importance. For
rush of
s has Particular
e camera' produces a . -!L from ¡ both its mechanical powerful interpretive tool that derives strength irrr" un¿ the verisimilitude that it conveys'e becomes even more complex in The link between words and i"ttg"' lik" the "index cards" of shared memory. While words l"""tio" -"îh advertise*i"^irt'*"' rtom the Gettysburg.Address' jingles on
;#;i, ments'andopening""î:ïï:îi:iï"i::,:iä.ïîilt:i::'"iï::
tfre past is facilitated by phoin,the .rripp'"t. of films that are readily available
uittny,o remember
.""JJ J, .ì
.f
a dazed and newly widowed Jacqueline was sworn in as the Baines
Kennedy, staring into spacås Ly"do: til'ty-frve next president, is seen
Johnson
years later in multiple
"""tlyírr"*o'"bÌ" a NewYork City exhibit ot' um commemorating the slain
contexts-
photographs' aDallas muse""*' United States president' and malls across the
memory's texture i""*t*g^"dyWarîol's n""io" of the image'IoVisual b""o*.i " fu"ilit"to' for memory's endurance' *""toty different from other kinds of Thus, materialtty t;;";;;'í"t collective memory's tran..-"-U..lrrg. trnug"t h"lp 't"bili'" ""d u"åho' cinema' television' and photography' sient and fluctuating ttature in art, images often become an event's primary uiJirrg ."""tt to tJre extent that
t'ã"ittg of the Delawa:." *tîT::t' markers. ln C"otg"Wt'hington's assassination' one specifrc ing of the flag on I*. ;trna", and the Stiltd/ 1r its broader recollection' image of the event has ;;;; to symbolize images to collectively shape the past' Yet difficulties arise when using s, do er. O en a remembered image tlris image supposedly refers is.inherand the meaning or event to which images
nature of the remembered ently arbitrar/; yet nothing in the memories
thit u*"y'"oMoreover' the images of collective a mixtuã of pictorial images and are comPosite., co"sttu'"ted "from types and
themselves glt
",
snatches ofverse' bstraótions' plot q"ip', ""a ;""" false etymolooies'" Even the frame of tlre stretches of di,"o"tt"l ;;J in one British study of depicted i*"g" hldtt ìt" o*" construcied "uto"'"' increased as a photo-
scenes' slogans,
the 1 970s, tJre aggressive aura of antiwar Protesters image cropped more closely' Electronic graph of the demonstration was 6
tampering
to
Ïffi;
;:,." """ "*.,r.*, In today's mediated age^it is easy to disembody ;""
images can be made images
"pp"aå"tural. 12 in ways not made aPParent to audiences' The images of collective memories ple-in Fentess andWickham's view,' has to be meaningful for an entire gro generally meaningful and capable of tral
possible." Photos in the Na¿iono I Geograph", in a primitive stage ic faitenedThirdWorld peoples over tlle Past century
i*"g.
,í.,,rt b" ,"ã.r""d
f",
l
",
understated their of development that ou..rt"t"d their exotic nature and of theAmerican povert¡ ú,rnger, sickness, and oppression' L{e'sdepictions who conanchors two-Pare11,^sulurban cozy, offered iu-ifyãf titJnfties contoward impulses life'The cultural and of social straiíed the instability trite memo¡ies resulting render often ventionalization and simplification
no furtìer than shots and overplayed. Pictures àf war, for instance, often go paradoxicaìJy' this shown'Yet heroismi as Paul Fussell has of "rrony.náns thrust Fin of per
y's most effective carriers'13 s are schematic, Iacking the detail
napalmed viåtn"mese village where children ran screaming from their remember us of many do Nor vision' of field homes into a photographer's thedateorcircumstancesr¡nderwhichthephotographwastaken.laButits
here that the media image's strategic relay but also on its storage, and it is the ChaIexplosion' H.indenbutg the as evénts as wide-ranging
ur"
f"y. In
to collectively l"nge. åisaster' and the O. J. Sitpson car chase, our ability of storage that means recognized ,"å"-b", tlrrough imag", d"p"t'dt on a to-fr¡¡ze' capacity allows us to appiopriaã images with others' Today's repla¡ and stoå ui.rr"l ,n.-oiies for large numbers of people-facilitatvisual data by ,rrrrr".tms, art galleries, television archives, and otler "d h"n].r-h", thus enhanced our ability to make tle past work for Present alms.
Discussions of sions of cultural p
I
remember the name of the South \
become at some level discusby which imag"t
collected,retainedforgotten'Bydefinitionthis connects visual memories with a culture's sociall¡
lt:
made and
politicall¡ and eco-
CHAPTER ONE on the photor,"rr:;":::;:;":,,. particular society at a particular time.ls
how
nomically mandated and sanctioned certain *", of images are set in plac
With
isterevents beYond our Presentation of agically into iconic representations
rrrb; acquire symbolic ov th.- *iih national
they are ecifically
instantþ
ing, repeating, and then imagining has been accomplished.
endow ate tlle
pro
hopes and fears of millions and ls n"ion to some deeply meaningful moment in history'
ss
From t}e mid-1800s onward, the PbgþgIgPUs technical and mimetic qualities established it as a successful
con-
Photography became lodged in the authenticit¡ verisimilitude, and truth. It came to be seen objective, a support for
hs Acting as "remnants of light captured-from ano oF lik tell "u-s not only about wñat thå world looks lf what it means."We can thereby link a photo of ed immolation with antiwar movements or recogn AlH.ans reform' African-American rapist as sufficient evidence for legal form of phothe take memorials when "even Kellner has contended,
entire newsmaking apparatus. e A second dimension of the photographic image has helped legitimate news photos. While photography ascended in journalistic importance pri1
,,seeing is believing," the image also derived power Íiom t}e mariþ because interpretive and Ð'mbolic dimensions surrounding that act of seeing' The
appeared priPhotos of tl1e liberation of the Nazi concentration camps sting memory as role marily in the news, and their have journa in by píotography's contested status have U'"å m"åpåtát"d i.t news since tle incepti accompanying ofthe long been."gu.d"d as secondary to and supportive tr tn"î regard has conflaied what were essentially two sources of
photo's significance here evolved from the ability not only to depict a realIife event but to position t}at depiction within a broader interpretive f¡amework. Invoking issues like scale, scope, and magnitude, photography,s symbolic dimension gave tle news image context because its inter-
pretation was "malleable [and] rearranged by information, belief, even wishful thinking . . . [leavingì t]re viewer outside t]re Íiame of the photo-
*oidr.
force: the photograph's-power-its truth-value and its symbolic
.
I
realistic and
Thus photographic realism helped journalism prove and establish its own on-site presence by grounding t}e assumption tìat photographs captured the scene as it was. It conveyed t].le experience of having-been-there to t'he
NEWS IMAGES AS VEHICLES OF MEMORY: VERSUS SYMBOLISM TRUTH.VALUE
levelofbeliefisacceptarrceoftheinterpretationt}recultureplaces
as
the written stories derived from the kind of proof it is supposed to offer-the proof of 'being tÌrere'' This is invested with the sanctity of trutì value. . . .The idealized version of the photojournalist is someone who stands outside the event-a neutral eye.
uPon a discourse tographs or museum objects, their-sense will depend tlen' the photograph' of weight compelling tha't articulates them."16îhe dimendiscursive and material its is determined by a linkage between us to a photo's many sions, and the power o"u't"d by that linkage draws meanings, botì now and then'
[There are] two levels of Âdence that what is dePi and that the dePiction ha
a
Photographs have the kind of aut}ority over imagination today, which the printed word had yesterda¡ and tlle spoken word before that.They seem utterly real.They come' we imagine, directly to us, witlout human meddling, and tìey are the most effortless food for the mind conceivable. . . .The whole process of observing, describ-
icVicki Goldberg observed,
,"p."r"nt'tháir
image within
Lippmann said in 1922:
me, an ePoch' As PhotograPhY crit-
Although photographs easily not meiely ,y-Ëoti". . . ' for
""
graph but inside the frame of its meaning."2o How does the news photo's dual function figure into memory? As AIan Trachtenberg has observed, all photographs of the past Pose a "double question of comprehension: how were tìey understood at t-he time and
9
MEMORIES
COLLECTIVE CHAPTER ONE photos' we must thus how should they be understood today?" In analyzing ask, not
were they articWhat do these photographs authenticate? but: How
argument? Whose was this sPoke it? To whom? Under
th what effects?2r
to be considered as markAs tools of memory, tlten, news photos need need to be examined both for ers of both truth-value and symbolism'They broader set offeatures their denotative or referential qualities and for the
USING PHOTOGRAPHY TO BEAR \/vITNESS TO \/VAR ATROCITY need of integration and reasPerhaps at no other time is humankind as in
of of ions of what falls within
in particular need surance as during war, and war atrocity places publics thty challenge standards reassurance. Atrocities are so named tå"u"t"
decent the pur assump
s' Because theY challenge
^ issues of proof almost always accom-
when atrocities are directed against It is the discussion of standards of behavior tends to intensify' "i'iíi"rrr,.to ,rrrpri." that twentieth-centuryWestern accounts of atrocity thereby truth telling' makevolved in conjunction with broader notions about
pu.ry
rePresentation, the more adequate it becomes as writers testimonial evidence of outrageous events' ' ' ' the closer to were tley came to the ghettoes and death camPs' the more likely crimes redefrne tleir aesthetic mission as one of testifying to the
t}e more realistic
against
t}em
a
and their PeoPle.
the act of bearImages have also been particularly instrumental in shaping ing wibress, for, in Julia Kristeva'
through which that referenti ity photos becomes not just tion of how and wh¡ and in
\
And Bearing witness calls for a specific use of photographic images' long for.as atrocity to people have borne witness indeed, "t,*:1' "lithorrgh y. In his have been waged, bearing wi Young demonstrated analysis of Holocaust literature, for instance' JamesYoung that witnessing became a critical attribute of prose:
tit"i, articulation. Furthermore,
have
ingtheactoftestifyingagainstatrocitiesoneoftlreparamountpoliticalacts
of monstrositY.' witness to inadequately known event eyes.TestimonY is to be a means of But images can come into PlaY o assumptions about atrocity. While structing moral consensus, particula sified in public discourse,,tley tend and nations involved are prepared to
"rrrd" "*po.rr.e
Soñtaf has remarked:
A photograph that brings news of some unexpected zone of misery cannot."uL" dent in public opinion r¡nless there is an appropriate " context of feeling and attitude' ' ' ' Photogrypht "."*ot "ttaje u moral positio.¡,Èot Èst=*n*tolqt-cg-o"9-und can help build a ffi;."".".-. .fn" contribution of photography always follows the naming of t}e event.2a
Indeed,thephotographicrecordproducedatt}retimeoftheconcen-
atrocities tration camps' iib"."tiood"pended on larger impulses to call the of governmental mechanism a all t of *u' by name, *¿ it,
"pp""r"n"å
p'".r.rurio.t. As wiàr other events p.opug".tda tools for both the
". typi""i tJpt.rentations
and"restricti
were used
ing stereofew recur-
ring themes."2sYet unlike tlre cas paganda was accomPlished not atrocity images but through a seem shots of the camps.The record of the seen. Over tìre.-we.k period in April and May 1945, photographs" forces produced to convince di.b"li"rrittg public that what the liberating
"
11
t0
