Vanishing points - Auschwitz.

[Toby Webster]

I'm not now sure how it happened, but an almost spur of the moment visit to Krakow to fulfill a long-held sense of necessity, spurred on, I'm sure, as the years are passing rapidly and the dreadful things that took place here are slipping out of living memory. I'm certain many forum members have visited to pay their respects, or out of some need to try to understand, and photographs tend to be repetitive given both the nature of the place, and the vast numbers of people who feel likewise, so this is a bit of a selection. It was bitterly cold, and the light was pancake flat.




























Barring the group of school children in the last photograph, you'd think I were the only person there; far from it, there were quite literally thousands of visitors, but the tour organisation is so slick and impressive that you never feel rushed or crowded, and there is time to contemplate.

 

[ian barber]

This is a place I have always wanted to visit and nearly did when we had an airport in Doncaster. Despite the flat conditions, I like this very much.

 

[John2]

A very nicely worked set Toby. You have made the most of the available light to produce a certain richness of tone. The subject matter leaves me with mixed feelings but the rational side of me recognises the value of what you have captured. Is there a deliberate pun in the title?

 

[Toby Webster]

I've edited a couple of the images to throw a bit more light onto them, for the better I think. Putting photographs onto this forum always serves to make you look at them more critically. I've added a couple of others too.

A very nicely worked set Toby. You have made the most of the available light to produce a certain richness of tone. The subject matter leaves me with mixed feelings but the rational side of me recognises the value of what you have captured. Is there a deliberate pun in the title?

Thank you, John. I don't think that there's any ambivalence about the subject matter; it's simply awful. If there's a question about whether or not this place should be photographed at all, I can only respond that if photos do anything to get that awfulness out there, then it's for the best, especially considering the strange times that we live in; people forget, and are becoming careless. The museum doesn't discourage photography, (it is not permitted in just 3 of the most sensitive rooms, a rule which is apparently sometimes ignored), indeed encourages visitors to send their photographs for submission on its instagram page. I wasn't sure whether I would take any photos at all before I was actually there; there is a part of you that feels as though it's intruding on other peoples' grief. I'm glad that I did though.

I hesitate to call the title a pun, but yes - the geometric layout of this place, and it's even ghastlier extension, Birkenau, with its many straight receding lines, some of which lead from the entrance directly to the gas chambers, calls for rather obvious geometric compositions. I'll post the Birkenau set tomorrow.

Ian, thank you too.

 

[John2]

.............................. people forget, and are becoming careless.

I agree. ...careless as in no longer care.

"Pun" wasn't the right word. I had in mind that the title might also be a recognition of the fact that sadly, many never left that camp.

 

[John King]

I have never had a wish to go to 'THAT' place after going to Bergen-Belsen when I was stationed over there. Belsen was not sombre as Auschwitz as shown here, but non the less very depressing.
I have been to Nordhausen where they used forced labour to construct the V1 and V2 missiles underground, but it was much the same with the knowledge that thousands upon thousands were worked to death.

 

[Tommy]

Quite a moving set of images, Toby. Your editing, to me, shows exactly what this place represents. The mood you have conveyed through your images is touching and to think you have achieved this with many other visitors in the location. It's not often you can hear stillness in images but you have conveyed this through your photography here.

 

[Helen Summers]

A moving set of ominous images Toby. For me it is as though the buildings have absorbed and are still radiating the evil that took place there. I worry the world is on the same trajectory as in the 1930s. It isn’t that people don’t care. It is just that there is no one left who can remember that era. And sadly the lessons of history never seem to be learned.

 

[Flack]

A nice set of images, Its on my bucket list. When ever I see photo's of Auschwitz, even the pictures have an eerie feeling about them after all this time.

 

[bandybw]

Very well done.

 

[HansTrapp]

A poignant report on one of the devil's lairs.