Photographing Sites of Nazi Violence, 1933–1945

By far the greatest number of photographs of Nazi sites of violence were taken by the perpetrators. Some Jews did work as official photographers in the ghettoes, but during deportations, in the camps and extermination centers, and at the sites of mass shootings, only Gestapo officers, SS men and women, or other authorized personnel were officially permitted to use cameras. In the Mauthausen concentration camp, for example, as Lukas Meissel explains in his contribution to the excellent collection of essays, Fotografien aus den Lagern des NS-Regimes. Beweissicherung und ästhethische Praxis , “only members of the so-called Erkennungsdienst (identification department) were allowed to take photographs.” 1 These photographs “do not reflect the reality of the camp” (45). They seldom confront us directly with Nazi violence. Instead, these pictures offer (false) images of frictionless operations, visual testimony to the efficiency of the perpetrators, usually meant to impress their superiors.