Commentary

Commentary from "Bilder der Welt und Inschrift des Krieges"
Source: Discourse, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Spring 1993), pp. 78-92

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Commentary
from
Bilder der Welt und
Inschrift
des
Krieges
(Images
of the World and
Inscription
of the
War)
Film
by
Harun Farocki
16mm, color,
75 min.
Camera:
Ingo
Kratisch,
Irina
Hoppe
Sound: Klaus
Klingler
Assistant/Research:
Michael Trabitzsch
Editing:
Rosa Mercedes
English
Version:
Translation: Karen
Margolis
with Bert
Papenfu-Gorek
Narrator:
Cynthia
Beatt
Sponsored by
the Kuratorium
junger
deutscher film
Producer: Harun Farocki
Filmproduktion
with
funding
from the
Filmfrderung
Nordrhein-Westfalen
1988
(first
screening)
American distributor: Drift
Distribution,
New York
When the sea
surges against
the
land,
irregularly,
not
haphaz-
ardly,
this motion binds the look without
fettering
it and sets free
the
thoughts.
The
surge
that sets the
thoughts
in motion is here
being
investi-
gated scientifically
in its own motion
-
in the
large
wave channel
at Hannover.
The motions of water are still less researched than those of
light.
Enlightenment
-
that is a word in the
history
of ideas. In Ger-
man:
Aufklrung.
Spring
1993 19
In the
year
1858,
in
Wetzlar,
the local
government building
offi-
cer
Meydenbauer
had the task of
measuring
the dimensions of
the cathedral facade.
To save the costs of
erecting scaffolding
he traversed the
length
of the facade with a basket
hanging
from block and
tackle,
by
the
same method used for
cleaning
windows.
One
evening
in the
year
1858 in
Wetzlar,
as he wanted to climb
down from the basket into a window of the
tower,
the basket
swung away
from the facade and
Meydenbauer
was in
danger
of
crashing
down.
"In the nick of time I
grabbed
the curved
edge
of an arch with
my right
hand and with
my
left foot I shoved the basket far into
the air. The counteraction sufficed to
push my body
into the
opening
. . ." and so on.
"As I climbed down the
thought
occurred to me: is it not
possible
to find a substitute for measurement
by
hand
through using
the
principal
of reversal of the visual
perspective
that is
captured
in
a
photographic image?
This
thought,
forced out
by
the
personal difficulty
and
danger
involved in
measuring building
constructions,
was the father to
the
technique
of scale measurement."
The idea of
obtaining
measurements
through photography
came to
Meydenbauer
after he was
suspended
between life and
death. That means: it is
dangerous
to hold out
physically
on the
spot;
safer: to take a
picture.
After this idea had first been aired
publicly,
the Prussian War
Ministry
offered to
carry
the costs of an
experiment
-
but this
came to
nothing
because there was a war on at the time.
The first
major
scale measurement based on
photography
was
achieved in 1868 at the fortress of Saarlouis.
Later,
Meydenbauer
initiated the establishment of memorial
archives,
which creates a
correlation,
in the sense that the mili-
tary destroy
and the curators of monuments act to
preserve.
He
wrote:
"Perhaps
some would find it
incredible,
but it is a fact
proved by experience:
in a scale
picture
one does not see
every-
thing,
but one sees
many things
better than on the
spot."
This
capacity
to see better is the reverse side of mortal
danger.
Arduous and
dangerous,
to hold out
physically
on the
spot.
Safer,
to take a
picture
and evaluate it
later,
protected
from the ele-
ments,
at one's desk.
80 Discourse 15.3
How to face a camera?
The horror of
being photographed
for the first time.
The
year
1960 in
Algeria:
women are
photographed
for the first
time.
They
are to be issued with
identity
cards.
Faces which
up
till then had worn the veil.
Only
those close have looked on these faces without the veil
-
family
and household members.
When one looks into the face of an
intimate,
one also
brings
in
something
of the shared
past.
The
photograph captures
the moment and thus
crops away past
and future.
In 1960 in
Algeria,
a
conscript
soldier named Marc
Garanger
photographs
the faces of women who have never been
photo-
graphed. They
are to be issued with
identity
cards.
Faces which
up
till then had worn the veil.
The veil covers
mouth, nose,
and cheeks and leaves the
eyes
free.
The
eyes
must be accustomed to meet a
strange gaze.
The mouth cannot be accustomed to
being
looked at.
A
mouth,
to be able to taste
something,
must come close to its
object.
The
eye,
to be able to
see,
can remain at a distance from
its
object.
Enlightenment
-
Aiifklrung
-
that is a word in the
history
of
ideas.
In German
Aufldrung
also has a
military meaning:
reconnais-
sance.
Flight
reconnaissance.
In central
Europe
the
sky
is
cloudy
most of the time. Clear skies
on about
thirty days
in the
year.
On the fourth of
April,
1944,
the
sky
was cloudless.
Preceding
rain showers had
precipitated
the dust in the air.
American aircraft had taken off in
Foggia, Italy,
and flown
towards
targets
in Silesia
-
factories for
synthetic petrol
and
rubber
-
known as Buna.
On the
flight
over the IG Farben
company factory
still under
construction,
a
pilot
clicked his camera shutter and took
photo-
graphs
of the Auschwitz concentration
camp.
First
picture
of Auschwitz taken at
7,000
meters altitude.
Spring
1993 81
The
pictures
taken in
April
1944 in Silesia arrived for evaluation
in
Medmenham,
England.
The
analysts
discovered a
power
station,
a carbide
factory,
a fac-
tory
under construction for Buna and another for
petrol hydro-
gnation.
They
were not under orders to look for the Auschwitz
camp,
and
thus
they
did not find it.
How close the one is to the other:
the
industry
-
the
camp.
It was not until 1977 that two
employees
of the CIA went
through
the archives to find and evaluate the
photographs
of Auschwitz.
It was not until
thirty-three years
later that the
following
words
were inscribed:
Tower and
Commandant's house and
Registration Building
and
Headquarters
and Administration and
Fence and execution wall and Block 1 1
and the word "Gas chamber" was inscribed.
Inspired by
the success of the TV series "Holocaust"
-
which
aims to
depict vividly suffering
and
dying,
and thus turns it into
kitsch
-
two members of the CIA fed into the
photo
archive
computer
the coordinates of all
strategically important targets
situated in the
vicinity
of the concentration
camps
-
and thus also the coordinates of the IG Farben
plant
at Monowitz.
There must be
pictures
of
everything!
They
evaluated the
photographs
rediscovered after
thirty-three
years, working
in their free time and
they
wrote:
A small vehicle was identified in a
special
secured annex
adjacent
to main
camp gas
chamber.
Eyewitness
accounts
describe how
prisoners arriving
at Auschwitz not
knowing
they
were destined for extermination were confronted
by
the
presence
of a Red Cross ambulance. In
reality
the SS used
that vehicle to
transport
the
deadly Cyclon-B crystals.
Could
this be that notorious vehicle?
The evaluators have no
way
of
knowing
for certain.
In
January
1945,
snow lies on the
ground
and the worker slaves
of the Buna
plant imprint
their
footsteps
in the
picture.
In this
January
of
1945,
as the Red
Army approaches,
the roof of
the barracks in which the SS carried out on human
beings exper-
iments
usually
reserved for animals is
completely
covered with
82 Discourse 15.3
snow,
which means that the barracks are
probably already
evac-
uated.
While the snow on the roofs of the
neighboring
barracks is
already melting,
which means that
they
are still inhabited.
The evaluators
4
Verify"
-
that
means,
they
establish the
verity
of the existence of the
camp
down to the last
detail,
and
they
do
this with relish for their role as
specialists.
Since
photography
and aircraft
flight
came into
existence,
there
has also been aerial
photography.
This
picture
was taken
by
a
dove with a camera attached to its
body.
This is how a
carpet
must look to a cat.
The
pattern
of the
carpet
is woven for
people standing upright,
for the view from above.
Human
beings
must learn anew to
recognize
the
pattern
of the
earth from the
perspective
of the air
-
a
primer
for this new
world
picture
is
published
with:
Hay
harvest and
Farmhouse and
Tables and chairs in a
garden
restaurant and
Washing
on the line and
-
and tank tracks in the sand and
Artillery positions
in the snow and
dead
straight footpaths
made
by
soldiers between flak
positions,
good
track
discipline
and natural
footpaths
over the snow-covered barracks
square,
breaking
of track
discipline
and
prisoners
in the
camp
and
in barracks
buildings
and
Marine latrines and
the Allied
ships
at the
landing
at
Salerno,
like stars
These stars are then read.
The Renault
plant
in Paris-Billancourt
destroyed.
One
year
later,
rebuilt and the
rebuilding photographed
and attacked
again
and the attack
photographed
and
destroyed again
and the destruction
captured by
a
picture.
Because bomber
pilots
cannot
properly
estimate whether
they
have hit their
target
and to what
effect,
in World War II
they
began
to
equip
bomber
planes
with cameras.
Spring
1993 83
The
preserving photograph,
the
destroying
bomb
-
these two
now
press together.
The bomber
pilots
had the first
workplace
in which a camera was
employed
to control
effectivity.
The workbench of a metal
presser.
The steel worktools for
pressing
metal.
Fritz
Peters,
who took this
photograph
in
1982,
wrote: "I saw a
factory
floor which must have
stopped participating
in technical
progress
sometime around the
beginning
of this
century."
On the
ceiling
one can make out: the shaft for
transmitting
the
power
to the machines.
The work of the metal
presser:
with a steel tool he
pulls
a
rotating
piece
of metal over a wooden form.
In the
year
1982 the
proprietor
of the last
surviving
metal
press
factory
in West Berlin died and there was no one who wanted to
take over the business.
Photographs
from the
workshop
which is
being emptied
out.
The
working
materials are
placed
in the
yard.
To think:
they
will
be
given
to the dead artisans in the burial
chamber,
like the
gold
to the Pharaohs.
Instead of
gold,
silver.
Just
the silver that turns to black in the
grain
of the
photograph.
The skill of metal
pressing
traces back to the trades of belt-maker
and
armory
smith. These workmen beat and chased the metal
into
shape
with hammer blows.
The
coppersmith
beats the hollow form from the sheet metal
with tens
upon
thousands of hammer blows.
The
technique
of metal
pressing
is a
technique
of
reproduction
only
about 180
years
old,
scarcely
older than
photography.
Automatic
pressers
and die
stampers
will now
replace
the metal
presser.
For
sixty years
the metal
press
Grasme and Co.
produced
bowls,
vases,
cooking pots,
thimbles,
lighting appliances,
and other
rounded and hollow semifinished
products
for industrial cus-
tomers.
In World War II the
largest
metal sheets were
pressed:
for search-
lights
to show
up
aircraft in the
sky.
84 Discourse 15.3
The
aircraft,
for their
part,
threw
light
bombs,
like a
lightning
flash,
to illuminate the earth for a
photo.
The metal
press factory
had tried to make a small
living
out of
war
production.
War
production
is mass
production
and mass
production
is the surest form of death for the small artisanal
enterprise.
With mass
production
the
goods
become
cheaper
and the
moment
they
are finished
they
are
already halfway
to the rubbish
dump.
The old work
tools,
which are now
obsolete,
are thrown onto the
scrap heap.
The
military
will now
process images.
The
military
authorities
-
here and elsewhere
-
constantly
take
pictures
of the
world,
in fact more than the
eyes
of the soldiers
are
capable
of
evaluating.
A
program
is
being developed
for an
optical
sensor that can
count the
points
on a die.
More
pictures
of the world than the
eyes
of the soldiers are
capable
of
evaluating.
A
program
is
being developed
that focuses on sections of aerial
photographs
and isolates
moving objects
-
in this
case,
cars.
More
pictures
than the
eyes
of the soldiers can consume.
A
program
is
being developed
that
automatically
identifies
peo-
ple
and vehicles on infrared
photographs.
How to react to a camera?
"First
thought
-
why
all these
spotlights?
Is a film
being
shot?"
Alfred
Kantor,
who survived three concentration
camps
includ-
ing
Auschwitz,
drew these
pictures immediately
after the Liber-
ation. Some based on sketches
kept by
fellow
prisoners,
most
based on his visual
imprints.
Here he reconstructs the arrival at Auschwitz and labels the
goods
train with the words: Deutsche
Reichsbahn,
Kassel. The
scenic director of the TV series "Holocaust"
subsequently
used
these same words.
The new arrivals have to
give up
their
baggage. Special
comman-
dos will collect it
together.
Transport
of
Zyclon-B
in
camouflaged lorry
-
camouflaged
with
the red cross.
Spring
1993 85
Alfred Kantor's
drawings
are
factually
accurate
-
the concrete
palisades
of the
camp
fence
actually
had this curved
shape
on
top
and the
drawings
serve as a substitute for
photographs,
like
the
drawings
of
proceedings
in courtrooms where
photography
is not
permitted.
Imprints
from a
place
which cannot
possibly
be
conveyed by
photographic images.
In actual
fact,
the Nazis did take
photos
in Auschwitz.
These
photographs
were taken
by
two SS men in the so-called
"Effects" section.
"Effects,"
that
is,
the
personal possessions
of
those,
living
or
dead,
who have
just
arrived in the
camp
after several
days' jour-
ney
in a
goods
train.
Since the authorities
began
to take
photographs, everything
is
accompanied by pictures. Including
the crimes
they
themselves
commit.
A mountain of
pictures grows up
beside a mountain of files.
This
picture
was made
-
secretly
-
by
unidentified
prisoners
in
Auschwitz.
They
wanted to broadcast the truth about this
camp.
The Nazis did indeed take
photographs
in Auschwitz
-
they
did
not
publish any
of them. It seemed advisable to them to
suppress
every
truth about the
camp.
When a train arrived at
Auschwitz,
the SS took on the task of
organizing
the so-called "selection
process."
They
divided the new arrivals into those who were able to work
and those who were not. Those considered unable to work were
the children under fifteen and the men and women over
forty,
all sick
people
and all women with children.
They
were all sent
straight
to the
gas
chambers.
A woman has arrived at
Auschwitz;
the camera
captures
her in
movement.
The
photographer
has his camera
installed,
and as the woman
passes by
he clicks the shutter
-
in the same
way
he would cast
a
glance
at her in the
street,
because she is beautiful.
The woman understands how to
pose
her face so as to catch the
eye
of the
photographer,
and how to look with a
slight sideways
glance.
On a boulevard she would look in the same
way just past
a man
casting
his
eye
over her at a
shop
window,
and with this
86 Discourse 15.3
sideways glance
she seeks to
displace
herself into a world of
boulevards, men,
and
shop
windows. Far from here.
The
camp
run
by
the SS shall
bring
her to
destruction,
and the
photographer
who
captures
her
beauty
for
posterity
is from this
very
same SS.
How the two elements
interplay, preservation
and destruction!
The SS took these
pictures
-
the camera was
part
of the
camp equipment.
The aerial
photographs reproduce
the victims at a distance of
7,000
meters.
In the
grain
of
photography they
find a
protection
for their
personalities.
Hannah Arendt
wrote,
the concentration
camps
were labora-
tories:
Laboratories,
in which
experiments
were carried
out,
to see
whether the fundamental claim of totalitarian
systems
that
human
beings
are
capable
of
being totally
dominated is cor-
rect. Here the
question
was to establish what was
possible
at
all and to obtain
proof
that
absolutely everything
is
possible.
Alfred
Meydenbauer,
the man who discovered the scale
picture
from
photography,
also initiated the establishment of memorial
archives.
He believed that the
great
artistic achievements of
humanity
lie
in the
past,
and he
proposed
that
building
sites be
photographed
in order to be able to draw the front elevation.
In case of destruction.
Lying open
is an album of the Prussian Institute for Scale Mea-
surement
Pictures,
1937.
Interior view of town houses in the
Vostrasse,
in the center of
Berlin. The
objects
sit
securely
in their
place.
The
photograph
confirms that
they
are in the
right place.
An
inventory
is taken. The Institute for Scale Measurement Pic-
tures
registers
the row of
dwellings
house
by
house,
so that from
the
photos
the front elevation can be drawn.
Meanwhile
building
firms are
already
on the
spot
and have taken
out the windows.
At the end of the row there is
already
a
building
site for the new
Reichskanzlei,
the
Chancellory.
Spring
1993 87
The
objects
find reassurance from the
photo
that
they
are in their
rightful place
-
then
they
will be removed. Door frames and
parquet flooring
have
already
been erased from the
inventory.
Meydenbauer's
fear of death had initiated an administrative
authority,
and it is
up
to an
authority
to work
together
with the
neighboring authority.
In 1937 the General
Building Inspectorate
was in the
process
of
demolishing
the
city
center of Berlin in order to build it anew.
The demolition was carried out with care in order to
preserve
the
building
materials and took
up
to
sixty days per
house.
A section head of the
drew this
picture
of
his ideal in which the
artillery
shot clear the
building
area.
As the allied bombers arrived over
Berlin,
the
diary
of the Gen-
eral
described it as valuable
preliminary
work for the
purposes
of reconstruction.
The
pictures
that the Allies made at the time of their aerial
attacks are used
today
to search
building
areas for
unexploded
munitions
-
for the
purpose
of reconstruction.
In the
plan
for this new Berlin to be created
by
the industrial
administration and
authorities,
the IG Farben
company already
had its name down for
participation.
In Monowitz the IG Farben
company
erected a
large plant
for
production,
and the SS
provided
the labor force.
Hard work
accompanied by
undernourishment and illness.
Sometimes one-seventh of the labor
group perished
in one
day.
Thirty
out of 200
perished
in one
day.
Works commando on the march to work in the Buna
plant.
Captive
balloons in the
background
for
protection against
low-
flying
aircraft.
After the war the IG Farben
company
took another
name,
as
some SS men also did.
On the arrivals
platform
at Auschwitz the division was made:
death or work. Inherent is the notion that
along
with
contempt
for
humanity
is the false idolization of work.
Already
then there was as little lack of labor force as there was of
space.
88 Discourse 15.3
Already
then work had to be created and this was done with war
production
and destruction.
What is no
longer possible
to believe in is once
again
idolized.
1960 in
Algeria:
the colonies.
1944 in Auschwitz: the human
being
as labor
power.
1960 in
Algeria:
the
property
of colonies.
1944 in Auschwitz: work as the sole
destiny.
Enlightenment,
a word in the
history
of ideas. In German
Aufklrung
also has a
meaning
in
military language:
reconnais-
sance.
Aufklrung
also has a
meaning
in
police language:
to clear
up
the
case.
The
police
will now
process pictures.
The
police,
here and else-
where,
has on file
photographs
of millions of
people,
criminal
suspects.
How can the face of a human be described with
certainty
so that
it can be
recognized by everyone?
By everyone
-
also a machine.
How to describe a face? The
police
is not
yet
able to
register
the
characteristics of a human face that remain the
same,
in
youth
and old
age,
in
happiness
and in sorrow. The
police
does not
know what it
is,
the
picture
of a man.
And because the
police
does not know what it
is,
how to describe
the
picture
of a human
being,
the
police
wants at least to take
measurements of
it,
to
express
its
picture
in numbers.
Anyway
men wear beards and women
paint
themselves to be
beautiful,
which makes the task of measurement difficult. To
get
an exact measurement of the human
picture,
the hair must
go.
Those scale
pictures
were made
by
Albrecht Drer.
They
came
with his
book,
Instruction in Measurement
,
with the Circle and the
T-Square,
in Lines
,
Planes and Solid Bodies .
The mathematical artists of the Renaissance
sought
to
represent
the
object by
means of the
principle
of central
perspective:
a
body
on a surface is
depicted according
to the rules of
projective
geometry.
This
precedes depiction by photographic
means.
Here Leonardo
depicts
the whole
earth,
projected
onto the sur-
face.
Spring
1993 89
Drer,
again,
took measurements of
objects,
from the
study
of
nature he obtained numbers and rules.
The
calculating
machines of
today
make
pictures
out of numbers
and rules.
Here Piero della
Francesca,
then
pictures
into
measurements,
today
measurements into
pictures.
In
England
the Iron
Age representation
of a horse or
dragon
which measures from head to tail over a hundred meters.
Only
a
god
can achieve the ideal distance for an overview of the whole
picture,
or a
pilot.
In the First World War a field crossed
diagonally by
a wide
path.
In
reality
an aircraft
hangar
with vaulted roof covered with earth.
The face of the
earth,
as
they say,
masked
by
beard,
glasses,
and
wig.
In the Second World War the
railway
station Dammtor in Ham-
burg
had
buildings
constructed around it and on these
buildings
and on the station roof were
painted paths
and trees.
In Bremen a
tributary
of the river Weser was covered over with
wood. Because
riverways
and
railways give
the
pilot
orientation.
Now the river Weser looks like an area of
agricultural production,
reclaimed land.
Rotterdam,
the
petrol
tanks were covered with
camouflage
nets
in which
dummy
trees were
planted.
And
Rummelsburg,
the
petrol
tanks were bedecked so that
they
appeared
to be tenement houses with inner
courtyards.
The Nazis
brought
out a book with
guidelines
for
optical
illusion
painting. Perhaps
an
anti-Drer,
perhaps
an actualization.
In Rechlin an aircraft
hangar painted
with detached houses with
trees between.
For the
sky
the war installations should
appear
to be
private
homes.
The Allied reconnaissance discovered this
camouflage
and illu-
sion and
published
the
knowledge
of this in a
specialist publica-
tion.
The cover blown in Nordholz on a
dummy
airfield which was
intended to attract
bombing
attacks.
90 Discourse 15.3
Nearby,
the real airfield
-
the
original
is much less clear than
the
copy.
Beside the real world is set a second world. A world of
pure
military
fiction.
Three
days
after the first aerial
photograph
of
Auschwitz,
two
prisoners
succeeded in
escaping. They
wanted to tell the world
the truth about the
camp.
One of
them,
Rudolf
Vrba,
then nineteen
years
old,
had
already
been in the
camp
for two
years.
He had worked on the construc-
tion of the IG Farben Buna
plant
and then afterwards for the
camp
administration. There he had to search
through
the
pos-
sessions of those who were admitted into the
camp,
alive or dead.
The Nazis called these
possessions
"effects."
Among
these
possessions
of his fellow
prisoners,
Vrba found also
things
to
eat,
which sustained his
strength
and life.
Again
these
pictures
that the SS had made to show the world one
day
how
they
had
destroyed
the
Jews.
Among
the shaven
heads,
a
girl
who smiles. In
Auschwitz,
apart
from death and
work,
there was a black
market,
there were love
stories and resistance
groups.
Alfred Wetzler had worked in the clerical office. He committed
to
memory
the
date,
country
of
origin,
and the number of the
new arrivals.
In
April
1944 Vrba and Wetzler had to work outside the electri-
fied
boundary
fence.
They
hid under a
pile
of boards. To
keep
tracker
dogs
at
bay they
laid down Russian tobacco soaked with
petroleum,
as an
experienced
fellow
prisoner
had advised them
to do.
After three
days
the SS
gave up
the search for the two men. On
the
way
to Slovakia
they
were taken in
by
a
peasant
woman. Vrba
thought,
if he died
now,
he would not have lived for
nothing.
He
had told the truth about Auschwitz to at least one other
person.
If the SS had
caught
the two men in
flight, they
would have
hanged
them on these
gallows
and left them there for some
days
as a
warning.
Or executed them
against
the notorious wall between Block 10
and Block 11. It was
dangerous
to be an
eyewitness.
Spring
1993 91
Would these
deportees
have allowed themselves to be
brought
to the
camp
without resistance if the truth about Auschwitz had
been made known?
Vrba and Wetzler reached Slovakia and wrote a
report.
They
described the selection
process.
They gave
witness that when a train arrived at the
camp,
the SS
divided the new arrivals into two
groups.
To the
right,
to
work;
to the
left,
to death.
What
they gave
witness to was inscribed on the aerial
photo-
graphs
and can be read there.
A train stands at the
platform
of the
camp
section Birkenau. A
group
of
deportees
too
young,
too
old,
too weak for
work,
are
being
led in the direction of the
gas
chambers.
Crematorium
complex
two
-
the
gate
stands
already open.
Right
next to the
gate
is a flower bed. Yard and
buildings
should
give
the
impression
that here was a
hospital
or a sanitorium.
Above the flower bed
-
a flat
building recognizable
almost
only
in
the shadow of the front wall:
"Undressing
Room." Those
arriving
were told to undress in this room in
preparation
for
showering.
At a
right angle
the
gas
chamber. It was
equipped
like a shower-
room. It could fit
up
to
2,000
human
beings,
who were often
pushed
inside
by
force. Then the SS fastened the doors shut.
Four vents can be discerned in the roof.
After a short
waiting period
to allow the
temperature
to
rise,
the
SS,
wearing gas
masks,
threw the
poison
substance
Zyclon-B
into
the vents.
Everyone
in the chamber died within three minutes.
Others who do not have to
go
to their deaths
immediately
stand
here in line for
registration.
Here in
August
1944 we see them
waiting
to be
tattooed,
to have their hair shorn and to be allo-
cated work. This work would also
destroy
most of them.
The Nazis did not notice that someone had
photographed
their
crimes. And the Americans did not notice that
they
had
photo-
graphed
the Nazis.
The victims also noticed
nothing.
Notes as written into a book of God.
The American aircraft
photographed
Auschwitz but
they
did not
attack it.
Not the rail
spurs leading
to the
camp.
Not the commandant's house.
Not the electrified
boundary
fence.
92 Discourse 15.3
Not the execution wall between Blocks 10 and 11.
They
did not bombard the
gas
chambers.
The
report by
Vrba and Wetzler
-
the first
eyewitness
account
-
found its arduous
way
out of Slovakia into Switzerland and
thence to London and
Washington.
Jewish
functionaries
appealed
to London and
Washington
to
bombard the rail
spurs
that led to the
camp.
Benjamin
Azkin of the
Jewish Refugees'
Committee
wrote,
"the
bombardment of the
gas
chambers would show the most
clearly
perceptible
and the
only clearly perceptible sign
of the
indigna-
tion that the existence of these
places
of execution had aroused."
The
military
authorities and the
politicians
of
England
and the
US refused to bombard the
transport
routes or the death
appa-
ratus.
They
said
they
were not able to
split
their forces and that
the
way
to
help
the
Jews
was to win the war as
quickly
as
possible.
Once,
on 13
September
1944,
an American
airplane dropped
bombs on the
camp by
accident,
and
photographed
the acciden-
tal
bombing.
In
1983,
as the number of atomic
weapons
in the Federal
Republic
of
Germany
was to be increased
again,
Gnter Anders recalled the
failure to bomb Auschwitz and demanded: the
reality
must
begin:
The
reality
must
begin.
That means: the
blockading
of all
entrances to the murder installations which
permanently
persist
must be
equally persistent.
Let us
destroy
the
possibil-
ity
of access to these
weapons.
To the atomic rockets.
Numbers once
again.
These numbers are coded
messages
from
Auschwitz
prisoners
who
belonged
to a resistance
group. They
set the date for an
uprising.
On 7 October
1944,
men of the
special
commandos attacked the
SS
guards
with
hammers, axes,
and stones.
With
explosive
devices made from
powder
that women had
smuggled
out from the Union Munitions
factory, they
set fire to
the crematorium.
They
succeeded in
doing
what the
gigantic
Allied war machine
could not:
they
rendered one murder installation unusable.
None of the resistance
fighters
survived. One can confirm the
partial
destruction of Crematorium 4 on the aerial
photograph.
Despair,
and a heroic
courage,
made out of these
numbers,
a
picture.

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Commentary from "Bilder der Welt und Inschrift des Krieges"

Source: Discourse, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Spring 1993), pp. 78-92

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