Convey the message…
This post centres around possibly one of the most poignant moments of my life. It is about my and a group of clients’ experiences when we visited Auschwitz Concentration Camp last week in Poland. We were offering a Cityscape Photo Workshop in Krakow and felt that it would be appropriate to visit this memorial to human barbarity and seek to show people the utter feeling of desperation prisoners must have felt on entering the ‘camp’.
The mission I offered to the group was that we were not, absolutely NOT, tourists, but visitors/guests and that we were ‘charged’ with seeking to convey the utter horror of this place to those who had never visited, by means of our photographs. This was to be our personal interpretation of the fear and brutality the Nazis inflicted on prisoners – gratuitous violence – to crush their spirits and ultimately to simply eradicate/exterminate them.
No simple challenge this but it did ONE key thing – it made us think. I mean REALLY think.
We left with a profound feeling of sadness but a sense of awareness, hopefully caught by us with appropriate sensitivity.
Hard yes, but, in context very rewarding.
The entrance gate to Auschwitz 1 – and that cruel wording – Work Makes Freedom…
Reidar Mathiassen
Thank you for an excellent workshop!
It looks like I have given you the wrong email address, it is rmathias@online.no.
I’m working on my images, will send some to you as soon as they are ready.
Regards
Reidar
Nick Jenkins
Thank YOU for joining us Reidar! I have corrected the email address 🙂
nj
Andrea
the pic is really impressive and mediated somehow the oppressiveness of this place because it is a monochrome pic ..i can imagine it was a very big challenge, thank you for the blog Nick.
Nick Jenkins
Thank you Andrea – I do appreciate your comments! Nick