[Leica] Pictures at an exhibition (was: Country of origin)

[Paul Chefurka <Paul_Chefurka@pmc-sierra.com>]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: aruby@rci.rutgers.edu [mailto:aruby@rci.rutgers.edu]
>Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 11:35 AM
>To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
>Subject: Re: [Leica] Country of origin

>Besides, the holocaust perpetrated by
>the Nazis was neither the most lethal nor the most terrible; 
>history, sadly
>20th century history in particular has amply demonstrated that fact.

Speaking as a man of Ukranian descent, Aaron, I'd have to agree with you.  Stalin and the Ukranians, the Armenian genocide, Pol Pot in Cambodia, the Rwandan massacres - some days it feels like there's an macabre international competition going on.

To keep this vaguely on topic, on Saturday I visited the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Phototgraphy here in Ottawa.  This is a place that usually shows art photos like one exhibition of photos of sticks stuck in sand (and their shadows...) - well, this time they outdid themselves.

It was an exhibit on genocide, in two parts.  The first part was a set of technically immaculate photos (in medium format with many panoramics) taken on the current grounds of Auschwitz.  The barracks, the ponds lined with ashes, a terrifying b&w inside a bare concrete gas chamber, lit with just the naked hanging bulbs.  Each photo was accompanied by a description of the original use of the place in the picture, many with reproductions of the architects' drawings.

The second half of the exhibit was enlargements of identity photos of Khmer Rouge victims, taken just before they were killed.  Just faces, with their ID numbers hanging on a tag around their necks and the marks of their beatings prominently visible.  Two hundred photos, two hundred sets of eyes - dazed, confused, terrified, disbelieving, resigned eyes.

The combined effect of those exhibits was devastating.  The most awful feeling for me was that I wanted with all my heart to say "Never again", but the evidence wass all too clear that this will keep happening because of the ability we have to think of other people as things.  I can only hope thatphotographs like this will help counteract that tendency.

Paul