Workshop: The Holocaust and (Digital) Photographic Documentation

René Kok, Picture Researcher NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies

An international workshop: ‘The Holocaust and (Digital) Photographic Documentation’, took place at NIOD, Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, in Amsterdam on September 19-21, 2011, in the framework of the EHRI project (European Holocaust Research Infrastructure).

The workshop aimed to combine the growing academic interest in photography with the increasing digitisation and opening up of photographic archives.  The overall goal was to generate a creative exchange between researchers on the many aspects of photographic representation of the Holocaust. Archivists of image collections and e-scientists were invited to discuss how EHRI can fulfil its purpose of creating a European research infrastructure, focussing on the photographic representation of the Holocaust. The organizers invited scientists as well as archivists of image collections.

The main questions relating to Photographic Representation of the Holocaust were:

• What is the international state of the art regarding research (from different disciplines) of photographs as a source for Holocaust history? Which topics are promising, which approaches should be explored now? How can we find new and cutting-edge scholarly perspectives from which to approach this particular field of research, which requires maximum sensitivity and sophistication?
• How can we identify the present and future users of historical images, and fulfil their needs to the fullest extent possible? What can be considered to be relevant experience and best practices in this field?
• The history of the Second World War and the Holocaust is often documented via very imposing images. These have had a powerful impact on memory-cultures at many different levels – national, trans-national, and group-specific. How can we develop new perspectives on the social, cultural and psychological impact of the representation of the Second World War and the Holocaust?

In addition, the workshop focused on the Consequences and Challenges of the Digitization of Photographic Collections:

• How shall we envision the role of historical images, photographs in particular, in an up-to-date visualised E-science environment?
  What kind of new research questions can be formulated when using large-scale digitized photo collections?
• How can we address and avoid undesirable situations when photographs are accessed on-line and disseminated to large audiences out of context and/or without proper explanation?
• Which newly-developing techniques in digitizing, inventorying, and making accessible images are relevant in general and in particular in the field of Holocaust studies? 

The over all aim of the organizers of the workshop was to stimulate further discussion among people dealing professionally and in a scholarly manner with Holocaust photography.

Following the final session, the participants concluded that the workshop had met their expectations. It was both effective and constructive to sit together and discuss many issues of mutual interest, in particular because an international infrastructure in which this can be done had been so far lacking.

The presentations revealed a great variety of national situations in terms of the number of (available) photos, the accessibility of these visual sources, and the level of digitisation. Also considered was the level of interest among professional researchers (historians, anthropologists, legal experts, non-academics such as reporters), survivors and relatives, school pupils and other educational target groups and the audience at large.

Furthermore, there are national differences in the ways activities concerning visual sources of the Holocaust are collected, organized and presented, linked to the goals and structures of various organisations such as Yad Vashem, the USHMM, NIOD, etc.

The contributions and subsequent discussions made it clear once again that there are differences in interpretations of specific photos and in the reasons why we collect and study these visual sources. If anything emphasized during these conference days it is the continuous search for contextualized information, that strongly helps to interpret photos (as well as other visual sources like film), to recognize their historical value – but in some cases also to dismiss their (perceived) authenticity, or rather to make us aware of their factual limitations. Some of the discussions illustrated how complex this process of interpretation and verification can be.

The workshop brought forward the realization that photos and films are the results of the human process of framing and representing time, a highly complex phenomenon that cannot be separated from the socio-cultural context and the intentions of the ones making those photos, of the distributors, the reproducers, the viewers and probably also the keepers, the archivists. But despite this knowledge, it has been underlined today that, for the general audience, a photo is simply a unique document reflecting nothing less than the historical truth. To them, it’s (often) simply the plain truth.

This awareness points out that there is a very wide gap between the assumptions and expectations of this audience (naturally comprising a diverse group of viewers of photos) on the one hand and we as (mostly academic) professionals on the other hand.

The question was raised as to whether digitisation can help bridge this gap. The good news for EHRI is that this issue is so large that by definition it requires strong international cooperation between all parties involved. It is important that inspiring dialogue continue over the next few years, not only by actually meeting each other in settings like this one but perhaps also in a virtual way by creating an internal wiki for experts.

In this context, there was a broad-based appeal sounded to assess the possibilities for the creation of a communal online Holocaust visual database under the auspices of EHRI. There is a definite need for such a database, which would need to serve as a sort of portal, even though there would be a number of snags and pitfalls in the way of its development. Such a database would allow archival institutions in Eastern Europe to efficiently make their collections, for the most part currently completely unknown to the outside world, accessible. Those groups represented at this workshop have stated their willingness to participate and to provide expert input.

In the meantime we need to know more about the users and potential users of visual Holocaust sources. What is it that they are (most) interested in, and what kind of material does not seem to attract their interest? We should try to find ways to monitor and analyse their search behaviour (including their activities and support in crowdsourcing). Once this is achieved, we can consider how to make them aware of the limitations and the complexity of the available material, stimulating their critical thinking skills without making them lose their historical interest in the Holocaust and WWII.

Visual material is an increasingly important tool for informing people about the past. The participants of the workshop feel that the job of the participating groups is, under the auspices of EHRI, to make a contribution to the improvement of the visual literacy of current and future generations. How this meets the needs and expectations of professionals remains to be seen.

The workshop made it clear that interdepartmental cooperation and agreements between archivists and professional researchers in the area of Second World War photography, particularly images of the Holocaust, is at the moment a rare occurrence. The participants found this conference to be highly constructive and informative. They urgently hope this sort of cooperative effort can continue. EHRI can make more regular, established cooperation possible. The participants propose that a follow-up gathering should take place very soon.