Through Different Lenses
A bit of a stir was sparked recently by a newly opened photographic exhibit on display at the Paris Historical Library. The ruckus arose over what some feel is the exhibit’s skewed depiction of life in Paris under German occupation from 1940 through 1944. Entitled The Parisians Under the Occupation, the exhibit contains 270 color photos showing the people of Paris engaging in the pleasures of life seemingly undisturbed by events going on in the world beyond the picture frame. The portraits from the city of light show a place barely ruffled by the occasional intrusion of uniformed German soldiers enjoying a stroll or taking in the sights. Critics have denounced the show for its failure to place the photographs in proper context. They point out that the pictures were taken by a photographer accredited to the Nazi propaganda service whose choice of subject carefully excluded the hardships of wartime and the darker sides of occupation – such as executions or the deportation of French Jews.
One does indeed wonder what precisely the exhibit organizers intended. If they sought to remind Parisians that the jackboot-heel of German oppression did not lay equally as heavy on all French necks, then they have obviously succeeded. Any desire on the part of the French to see themselves depicted as victims is jarred by these pictures of smiling, well-clad and seemingly happy Parisians enjoying a delightful sunning at a sidewalk café.
By showing the ordinariness of daily life of many in Parisians, little affected by the “big events” going on around them, the exhibit obviously presents an incomplete picture of the times. But its incompleteness somehow points an even sharper finger at what has been omitted. It also reminds us of just how selective our viewpoints on the past can be, of our preference for remembering the pleasanter things of life – even when they are lived out against a backdrop of mass murder, war and widespread devastation. Sometimes – maybe most of the time – life just goes on.
By coincidence, and not unrelated, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum announced the addition of a set of recently acquired photographs to its permanent collection. Taken from the personal photo-album of the deputy to the commandant of Auschwitz, these pictures also show us people enjoying themselves and relaxing – except that in this case the people depicted are all SS-personnel living out their pleasurable lives in closest proximity to mass slaughter. Again, as with the pictures from Paris, it’s the ordinariness of the things shown and the purposeful exclusion of the horrors going on beyond the frame that is the most striking thing about them.
The two sets of pictures do differ in one way, of course. Viewed with a fuller knowledge, the “normality” of wartime Paris depicts, at worst, an unsettling, disturbing dissonance. The “normality” of SS life at Auschwitz, however, is an outright obscenity.
International Herald Tribune article on Paris exhibit:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/25/europe/paris.php
Paris Historical Library photographic exhibit:
http://www.paris.fr/portail/Culture/Portal.lut?page_id=102&document_type_id=2&document_id=50952&portlet_id=818
US Holocaust Memorial Museum SS photographs:
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/ssalbum/
One does indeed wonder what precisely the exhibit organizers intended. If they sought to remind Parisians that the jackboot-heel of German oppression did not lay equally as heavy on all French necks, then they have obviously succeeded. Any desire on the part of the French to see themselves depicted as victims is jarred by these pictures of smiling, well-clad and seemingly happy Parisians enjoying a delightful sunning at a sidewalk café.
By showing the ordinariness of daily life of many in Parisians, little affected by the “big events” going on around them, the exhibit obviously presents an incomplete picture of the times. But its incompleteness somehow points an even sharper finger at what has been omitted. It also reminds us of just how selective our viewpoints on the past can be, of our preference for remembering the pleasanter things of life – even when they are lived out against a backdrop of mass murder, war and widespread devastation. Sometimes – maybe most of the time – life just goes on.
By coincidence, and not unrelated, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum announced the addition of a set of recently acquired photographs to its permanent collection. Taken from the personal photo-album of the deputy to the commandant of Auschwitz, these pictures also show us people enjoying themselves and relaxing – except that in this case the people depicted are all SS-personnel living out their pleasurable lives in closest proximity to mass slaughter. Again, as with the pictures from Paris, it’s the ordinariness of the things shown and the purposeful exclusion of the horrors going on beyond the frame that is the most striking thing about them.
The two sets of pictures do differ in one way, of course. Viewed with a fuller knowledge, the “normality” of wartime Paris depicts, at worst, an unsettling, disturbing dissonance. The “normality” of SS life at Auschwitz, however, is an outright obscenity.
International Herald Tribune article on Paris exhibit:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/25/europe/paris.php
Paris Historical Library photographic exhibit:
http://www.paris.fr/portail/Culture/Portal.lut?page_id=102&document_type_id=2&document_id=50952&portlet_id=818
US Holocaust Memorial Museum SS photographs:
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/ssalbum/
KMPRINCE - Wed May 14, 17:51 Topic: Europe
I am not really shocked by normalcy during wartime....
I recently read "War Dead" by Luc Capdevila and Daniele Voldman. Many of their examples of the handling of death and commemoration are taken from the Vichy period and include memorial sevices and rituals around Allied graves - shot down British pilots, for example. These services were not interfered with by the Germans. Much of normal life was allowed to go on, even some activity that was political and potentially subversive.
I also recall finding a book on some obscure aspect of ancient Greece on the shelf of the library many years ago. It was published in Leipzig in 1943. While armies were being swallowed whole on the eastern front and cities began to burst into flames, there was still a "normal" life going on. There were still people with time, resources and interest enough to do meticulous research on ancient Greece. There was still paper to print it on. One of the themes in Cornelius Ryan's, "The Last Battle" is how much of normal life went on in Beriln right up to the siege of the city in the final days of the war. The real collapse came after the armistice.
In the case at hand several hundred thousand Frenchmen were prisoners of war, several tens of thousands of Jews were in grave danger, and by the end of the war some 40,000 civilians were to have been killed by Allied bombing. But from the summer of 1940 to the spring of 1944, there were no prolonged combat operations in France and France didn't have much of an army - at least not one that was recruiting whole yearly contingents and sending them off to battle. One could make the case that the war was elsewhere. I see no reason why the cafes would not be full on a sunny afternoon.
In my own research on the city of Riga during World War One, I found similar results. Even while the front was within earshot, the population reduced by half by evacuation, and the city full of soldiers, there were still some aspects of normal life. The newspapers were full of ads for mundane items; theaters and restaurants still operated. The decline in normal life reflected in the diaries of the time is gradual and often based on political concerns, not a sudden and complete change as a direct result of war. The prohibition on speaking German, for example, had a profound effect on the social life of the local elites. That was a wartime policy, however, and not because of bombing, executions, occupation, etc. Much of community life did grind to a halt in 1915 (clubs and associations ceased to operate) but that was for demographic reasons (mass mobilization and evacuation) which do not apply to Vichy France.
Normal people are biologically, psychologically, economically, socially incapable of being political 24/7. One simply cannot spend every waking hour in a state of horror and defiance over "occupation" unless one is locked up in a prison or concentration camp, and perhaps not even then. A person like Hitler appears to have had a very empty private sphere and to have been concerned almost exclusively with ideology, politics and war. Thankfully, most people aren't like that!
Our society today is an extreme case of a society at war trying to do everything to not be reminded of it. We haven't even raised taxes to pay for it. When I visit the United States, I see no trace of it unless I go out of my way to find it. The commander in chief did, however, at least give up golf: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/13/bush-i-gave-up-golf-for-t_n_101595.html