Tracks Headed East

A sense of urgency overtook me today and I was able to get a couple of important photographs made. I'm exhausted right now, but elated. While I call everything an experiment, it's not exactly true. For now, however, I'm calling the work experimental.

The "train tracks" image below is something I've been meaning to try for a while. Most all of the tracks here were used, at least in some part, to transport Jews and other undesirables to either bigger train stations or directly to the concentration camps. My friend, Caron, mentioned that I should look at making some images like this - I couldn't agree more.

The feeling I get when I look at this empty, quiet image is one of anxiety. I'm waiting for a train to rip through this space headed east (the direction of this image) with cars full of people going to their death. Although, it doesn't look like it, I was very close to the tracks. It made me a little bit nervous. I shot this with my new (old) CC Harrison portrait lens - wide open - what a neo-pictorialist, huh? I was lucky to find a spot where I had access to the tracks (and schlep all of my Scheise to it). Sometimes, it's difficult doing these kinds of things. I was thinking about how I would probably be arrested in the United States for doing this... you know the whole terrorist scare thing. No one was around when I made the images. It was out of the way and "in between" towns.

"Train Tracks Headed East - Bahnhof Ahead" - 29 March 2008 - 1305 - 10x8 Black Glass Ambrotype (destroyed) - Southwestern Germany (quiet countryside). 
I'm going to keep making images of memorials, tracks, and portraits (and whatever else strikes me). I'm also going to explore making images of smokestacks. All of these symbols are very powerful to me. I have no idea how all of this is translating, or will translate, but I'll keep making images, thinking out loud, writing my thoughts and ideas down and hopefully, someday put it all together.

Viernheim Synagogue Memorial & Some Project Thoughts

I can only imagine what goes through the minds of the people watching as I make photographs in the small towns and villages here.

This morning I went out to re-photograph the Synagogue memorial in the village I live in, Viernheim. They moved the memorial (I call them gravestones - they always seem to be weeping) a couple of months ago. They also included a little sitting area and bench. It's actually a lot better.

As I setup and made preparations to make a plate, several people walked by and stared - I mean stared! One old German man, maybe 70 years-old, or more, almost tripped, as he was walking by staring. He wasn't watching where he was going. I said, "Achtung, Baby!" - I wonder if he got the reference to the U2 album, probably not.

I don't mind people watching. I'm a voyeur by profession and passion. The thing that I don't is like not knowing if they're just interested, or if they're thinking, "I would prefer that this guy go away." It feels like the latter, but I'm hopeful that it's the former.

The photograph I made this morning is gone. It made me sick, but I wiped it from the plate. This is the only "evidence" that remains of the Ambrotype. What if I made this whole project like that? What if there were no plates in the entire project, only non-tangible (digital) representations? It would be a lot like the subject matter, no?

A friend/colleague emailed me the other day asked me about my thoughts on impermanence, or ephemeral art. He's working on his M.F.A. and doing some really interesting things with chalk-screen transfers. His images are only there for a short time on a chalkboard - this theme has been explored by a lot of artists, but it keeps coming back to me, time and time again. It feels like I'm not listening.

Just as the Synagogues and people were "wiped away", I think that this method may serve the project well. I first thought about breaking the glass, destroying the images, or having Germans do that in a performance. After some thought, I decided no, that's too much. However, wiping these images  from the plates, and maybe even keeping the Collodion I wipe off as residue may be the answer I've been looking for.

You have to remember, these images are extremely beautiful when you're holding them in your hand. They're a "precious artifact" in a lot of ways.  They're also a lot of work to make - a big investment in many ways -  time, money, effort, etc. So destroying them and only keeping (digital) representations creates a sense of loss for me - a lot like how I feel when I see (memorials) representations of these beautiful Synagogues (and people) that were destroyed.

I'm going to seriously explore this some more. Right now, in this moment, I feel very strongly about it.

"Destroyed Synagogue Memorial With Apartments and Playground" 8x10 Black Glass Ambrotype - 29 March 2009 - 0923, Viernheim, Germany (I flipped this positive so you can read the text) 
Notes: The memorials seem to be "weeping" every time I photograph them. The background (apartment buildings, trees, playground, etc.) appear as a painting or drawing, unreal, if you will. The gravestone seems to be emerging from a black earth - terrible and foreboding. 

Germany issues arrest warrant for Sobibor's 'Ivan the Terrible'

German authorities issued an arrest warrant on Wednesday for John Demjanjuk, 88, the alleged Nazi war criminal ‘Ivan the Terrible’ suspected of killing tens of thousands of Jews in a World War II death camp.

"The accused is currently still in the United States," a court official said in a statement. "As soon as he arrives in Germany he will be questioned and tried."

Ivan the Terrible

A spokesman for the Justice Ministry told The Local, “We are looking at how this arrest warrant can be carried out. As to how, or when, I cannot say.”

If the US authorities do not expel Demjanjuk, a formal extradition request will be made.

Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk, now living in the United States, is thought to have assisted in the deaths of at least 29,000 Jews during his time in a Nazi concentration camp in Sobibor.

Demjanjuk, one of the world’s most wanted Nazi war criminals, emigrated to the US in 1950 but was extradited to Israel in 1986 after being accused of being the infamous ‘Ivan the Terrible.’

Sentenced to death in 1988 in Israel, he was released in August 1993 when Israeli judges dropped the case against him after statements by former guards collected by the KGB suggested another man was the infamous ‘Ivan the Terrible’.

Demjanjuk then returned to the city of Cleveland in the US state of Ohio where he has been living under house arrest conditions.

Six years later, the case against him was revived as evidence emerged that he had worked for the Nazis as a guard at three other death camps. He is still on a Simon Wiesenthal Centre list of the most wanted Nazi war criminals still alive.

Story from thelocal.de

Shoah

I've watched a lot of films and read a lot of books about the Holocaust, or Shoah, over the years. However, I hadn't seen, "Shoah" by Claude Lanzmann. I want to travel to some of these places, especially Auschwitz-Birkenau, Chełmno, Sorbibor and Treblinka, and do some work for my project.

If you haven't seen it, you should - here's an overview:

Claude Lanzmann directed this 9 1/2 hour documentary of the Holocaust without using a single frame of archive footage. He interviews survivors, witnesses, and ex-Nazis (whom he had to film secretly since though only agreed to be interviewed by audio). His style of interviewing by asking for the most minute details is effective at adding up these details to give a horrifying portrait of the events of Nazi genocide. He also shows, or rather lets some of his subjects themselves show, that the anti-Semitism that caused 6 million Jews to die in the Holocaust is still alive in well in many people that still live in Germany, Poland, and elsewhere.

"Shoah" by Claude Lanzmann

A good perspective on the camps, locations and where I live (red box).

Kristallnacht: The Beginning

I really love this image (it will probably end up on the front of my new web site) - this was the first plate of the day. It's an 8" x 10" black glass Ambrotype shot with a small Jamin-Darlot (c.1864) lens - I like the "keyhole" effect this lens gives the image.

We visited Mainz, Germany today. It's about 45 minutes to the north of us. I made three wet plate collodion images there of the former synagogue. It was perfect weather and a perfect day for it.

The Germans were very friendly in Mainz. We had a paper ready to handout to them explaining what I was doing. There were a few very positive and encouraging responses; I was surprised. There were a few that stayed and watched as I went through the entire process and saw the final plate coming up in the fix. Really great stuff!

I am very excited about this project now; the results were fantastic today and I look forward to going out again in a few days to make more images. Jean and Summer were outstanding! I love you both! Thank you for all of your help - I couldn't do this crazy thing without you!

The memorial plaque - this plate is exquisite in real life. The details are amazing - especially the stones
and the relief of the old synagogue. This is an 8" x 10" Ambrotype on black glass.

 
Quinn exposes a plate as Summer rolls video.

Here's the setup: Toyota 4Runner and a portable darkroom!

The Dachau Concentration Camp

"Arbeit Macht Frei": The Dachau Concentration Camp

22 December 2007

Words seem so weak and meaningless when I think about how to describe our visit to Dachau’s concentration camp Saturday.

Even that sentence seems trite and cliché – “Oh yeah, the Holocaust, sad, terrible, blah blah blah, we’ve heard it all before.” I recently wrote a paper about my Kristallnacht project and it begins like this:

“Ian Kershaw said, 'The road to Auschwitz was built by hate, but paved with indifference.’ The Holocaust is a topic most people prefer to know only superficially, or to ignore altogether. I believe that an understanding of its complexity, as well as its violence, is critical to an understanding of our world and our humanity”.

I believe this is how most people respond to or think when the topic of the Holocaust is brought up. Most Americans feel like they have "Holocaust Fatigue" (and you can imagine how the Germans feel).

It’s not that people don’t think that it was tragic and terrible; it’s that they don’t really understand how tragic and terrible it was and what that means to them today (i.e. losing personal freedoms and all those slippery political slopes we seem to find ourselves on lately). There is relevance and meaning in these events that we need to talk about and keep alive; both for the victims and for our own lives; politically and personally.

Munich (München) is about 200 miles southeast of us. It should be a little less than 3 hours to drive there. However, on Saturday, it took us over 4 hours because of “Staus” or traffic jams. Dachau is about 10 miles outside of Munich. It’s where the concentration camp is located and where we stayed.

When we arrived, we checked into the hotel and dropped off our (minimal) luggage. We stayed in nice place called Central Hotel Dachau. Denise was kind enough to pay for the rooms (thank you!) We only spent a few minutes in the room(s) and we were off to see the concentration camp. It was amazing to me that the camp was only 1.5 kilometers outside of the city! I was blown away! I thought about the crematorium and the ashes that must have fallen on Dachau, unbelievable.

It took less than 5 minutes to drive to the parking lot of the concentration camp (it’s weird to say that). We got out of the car and started unloading and getting dressed for the weather. Summer mentioned something about the smell. I could smell something like old onion soup and tin or metal. I thought it smelled kind of like body odor. She agreed and said that she was about to gag. Jean and Denise said they couldn’t smell it. We could smell it again outside of the barracks area. Later on, we realized that it got into our clothes (like smoke) and we could all smell it. It wasn't a good smell and we're not sure what it was.

It was very cold there Saturday – a damp cold. It was foggy and bleak too. The first time I realized that I was really there was when I saw that infamous, “Arbeit Macht Frei” slogan on the gate. What an insult this is – I could picture thousands of prisoners being marched in and out of that gate everyday to forced road marches, meaningless labor and ultimately death. That phrase must have haunted them.

The moment I walked through the gate, there was an eerie silence and expanse of space that was cold and gray. I immediately felt very alone. In fact, I felt an overwhelming sense of loneliness. I felt abandoned, scared and very small at that moment. I’m not easily spooked, but this place scared me in a weird, surrealistic way. It was very quiet. The only thing I could hear was the sound of my shoes crunching along the gravel with each step I took. I couldn’t feel my legs and I felt hollow, or outside of myself somehow. All of a sudden, a scene of isolation ran through my mind. I “saw” and “heard” static and then I “saw”, or felt, myself standing in a cold snow-drifted land with the wind rushing across my body. It was like a scene from a movie. I was standing at the far right of the frame facing the viewer and wind was blowing hard from my left. I just stood there looking into nothingness. The feeling of expanse, abandonment and loneliness never left me.

To go into details of what we saw wouldn’t do them justice. I even had second thoughts about writing anything about our trip. It’s safe to say that it was emotional and moving to be in a place where so many people lost their lives in such terrible ways.

For the first time in my life, I’m beginning to understand why it’s so important to remember. Why memory is so crucial to our progress. We truly are destined to repeat these kinds of things if we don’t.

This is probably my favorite image I shot there. This beautiful red rose, covered in frost and dying, lying on a box of ashes of some of the victims of Dachau. The wall says, "Never Again" in five different languages. That is the message I got - to keep these memories alive. The stones are from Jewish people that have visited and placed a stone on the box of ashes as a symbol of erecting a tombstone for the dead.

The infamous gate - "Arbeit Macht Frei" - I will never think about that phrase the same way again.

The plaque says, "Execution Range with Blood Ditch". There are a couple of these on the camp. Summer is placing stones on the memorial. The "blood ditch" is right in front of the plaque.

A photo shot in 1945 right after the liberation of Dachau showing the remains of some of the victims. They could fit up to 9 bodies in these ovens. Nine people? Can you imagine how emaciated the people were?

These ovens WERE USED to cremate people. This is in the "old" Crematorium.

In so many ways, this is what Dachau felt like to me.

I was very moved by this memorial - "Crematorium - Remember How We Died Here"

The (very moving) sculpture in the center of the camp by the artist, Nandor Glid. The emaciated bodies entangled with barbed wire - It says, "Forgive, but never forget".

This is the ONLY color in the camp. It's a bas relief that shows the different "badges" worn by the camp's prisoners. Jews, A-socials (Gypsies), Homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses, and Political and Religious prisoners all had different symbols and color combinations of symbols in order to quickly identify their "crimes". The piece is three links of chain connected by bars with the badges on/around each chain.

Summer peering into the Jewish Memorial on the far south side of the camp.

These were the victims found in the room I photographed below. This is just mind blowing to me!

This is the room where the (above) victims were piled up. It was cold and eerie. The whole thing was surreal.

Jean and Summer peer through the window inside the (new) Crematorium.

The barracks - rebuilt in 1964. It was amazing how strict the SS was on the cleanliness and order of the barracks - just another testament to the sickness of it all.

This is the "old" Crematorium directly across from the "new" one.

Bodies in front of the "old" Crematorium (see photo above this) in 1945. Obviously, these victims were going to be cremated.

Detail of the (used) ovens in the "old" Crematorium.

Denise looking into one of the ovens of the "new" Crematorium.

Electric fence and guard tower. I wonder how many died on these fences?

Entering into the concentration camp at Dachau.

I'm at one of the "Execution Ranges with Blood Ditch". I wanted to stand there to see what it felt like. I was looking for bullet holes in the concrete.



The "new" Crematorium and gas chamber building.

2/3 of all of the prisoners were non-Jewish, political prisoners with Polish Catholics in the majority. 1034 Catholic Priests died at Dachau. This is a memorial to them.

This is a gas chamber that was used at Dachau. I could barely stand up in it - it freaked me out. I was amazed that I got this image with the moving body in it.

This is, "The Grave of Thousands of Unknowns" - the ashes from the Crematorium were dumped here (as well as other places).

A photo from 1945 showing the bodies of some of the victims piled outside of the Crematorium.

This is some of the train track just outside of the main gate.

"Dachau can and shall be a lesson! Therefore we dare not be silent about it, although the memory of it is sad and grievous." Dr. Johannes Neuhäusler, Auxiliary Bishop of Munich and former Dachau inmate, June 17, 1960

The Great Commodity: Time

Time Waits For No Man

Here I sit in disbelief that it's the 7th of October! Where is the time going? It's a little bit scary, especially being aware that we are here for a very limited time.

We had plannned a trip to Trier, Germany this weekend but we cancelled because of the tremendous amount of work we have to do here in the house (still). Although Trier is less than 2 hours away, we are surrounded by boxes and "stuff" that need to be put away and we can't avoid that. Saturday is the day you have to go shopping (food) because everything here is shut down on Sunday. The point is, we have to get settled before we start running off to France and Italy (all of the countries) - but WE WILL (eventually).

The "reality" of Europe is starting to hit us too. It is very expensive here and there are a lot of cultural "issues/barriers" here too. Lately,

I've become preoccupied with the German people (and attitude) pre-Holocaust. I've been reading about the anti-Semetic attitude in the 19th and 20th Century of the people here and some history of the village we live in. There are 31 death camps within an 8 hour drive of our village, I'll try to visit all of them in the next three years.

I'm interested in what makes the German people the way they are today. If you've lived in Germany you know what I'm talking about.

More to come...