The Shooting Of The Woman With Child Holocaust Photo is Authentic

Below is the photo whose authenticity I questioned in my recent post , and removed from my website.



And here is the supposedly uncropped version.



USHMM = United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

I asked for any information on the photo, among other things, and here are the responses that matter:

Email #1 from Hilary Earl:

I am an historian, my area of expertise is the Einsatzgruppen trial (trial 9 of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials). In the course of my research I spent 9 months at the Centre for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the USHMM. During my stay at the Centre I made use of the Photoarchive that the Centre houses. The picture that you removed from your website was in fact a photograph intercepted by the Polish Home Army in 1942 (the photograph was in a letter sent home by a German solider who was on the Eastern Front). The Photo, according to the information of the CAHS, had written on the back "Urkraine 1942, Jewish Aktion, Ivanogrod". The Home Army monitored mail from the east that passed through the post office in Warsaw. Letters and photos of interest were copied and sent on to the Polish-Government- in-exile in London.

The CAHS is the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the USHMM.

H-Genocide list response (1/11/06):

The only right photograph is the one at the USHMM. The photograph was taken near Ivangorod (Ukraine) in 1942 and sent home by a German 'soldier' but intercepted in a post-office by a member of the Polish Resistance. That is what Jerzy Tomaszewski, who owns the credits for this photograph, has told me. I've read the story of the interception somewhere else but they could be referring to the same source, so don't take this story for absolutely true. If you're looking closely you'll see on the right side of the photograph that several people are digging in the ground, probably digging their grave. You see the shovels and a man who is in the pit up to his chest. Several people are holding what look like stones. On the left side are pointed guns and you can see what probably is a corpse. Hugo Haig Thomas is wrong. The story he tells was fabricated by Faurisson, the French 'revisionist' (holocaust denier or 'negationist' is a better term, as revision is one of the tasks of a historian), in 1978. Sincerely,
Gie van den Berghe
Professor University of Ghent, Belgium

H-Genocide list response (1/12/06):

You can acquire the complete (quite-wide) photo (Ukraine, 1942, Jewish action, Ivangorod) from the USHMM photo archive/ JerryTomaszewski. An Einsatzgruppen Action, which in no way fits what we know about the complete photo which was whitewashed- explained by the HR group that "corrected you'. What they gave you was a fairy-tale. The cropped photo when expanded (this cropped version seemed to be popular among Wehrmacht troops in mail to home). This photo was found by Polish postal-workers. The full-wide lens photo shows far right -naked Jews lined -up before a mass grave, those cowering awaiting their murder, far right a line including German Auxiliary-police, local or Latvian being utilized by SS, aiming weapons at those intended to die, a smaller grave at the right foot of executioner. The woman evidentially did not stop in front of the grave intended for her and the child. There is no tractor-cover, simply two women, covered with blankets, bent over the clothing of those "processed."
Edward J. Trout Pennsbury History Dept.[retired after 34.91 years/2004]
Adjunct History Faculty: Bowling Green State Uni.,B.G.,Ohio; Tiffin Uni.

I tried every possible keyword to find the photo on the on the
USHMM site, but could not find the photo there, cropped or uncropped. Yet, it is mentioned as being on the site.

H-Genocide list response (1/12/06):

But how do we know that they are digging 1. graves, 2. their graves? The gun certainly does not point directly at the woman. Without the letter it was with, we will not know what happened there. I also wonder, if it truly was a photo taken during a massacre, whether a soldier would send a such a picture to Mom and Dad?

These negationist sites have a useful purpose in forcing historians to do
more careful work in identifying sources.

Thomas Reimer

H-Genocide list response (1/15/06):

The photograph taken in 1942 at Ivangorod shows no "naked Jews lined-up" and no "smaller grave" at the right foot of the executioner (as Edward J. Trout wrote) but (the corpse of) a victim lying there. On this photograph (I tried to sent a good copy with this mail, but unfortunately the resolution is too high for transmission by the web) one sees on the right side several (probably) Jewish persons. One bald and bearded man on his knees, another man with cap standing in what is most probably the grave they are delving. On the front, at the edge of the grave one sees a prostrated woman or man. More on the right there are two (maybe three) bowed women, standing next to a pole (execution pole?) and two shovels.

This photograph is quite often halved in (academic and other) publications and museums. For instance in the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance at Malines (Belgium) and the new historical museum of Yad Vashem at Jeruzalem. I signaled this to the museumdirectors who told me that they were aware of it. In Malines they wouldn't even consider to show the entire photograph, in Yad Vashem they were willing to think about it. The photograph was also halved in Daniel Goldhagens 'Hitler's willing executioners' (p. 407) with the legend: 'In front of a photographer, a German soldier takes aim at a Jewish mother and child during the slaughter of Jews at Ivangorod, Ukraine, in 1942'. This interpretation may give us a hint as to the reason for the distortion of the photograph. By halving it, one individualizes, personalizes the 'story', 'reduces' it to the manicheistical opposition perpetrator-victim, so that one can suggest - als Goldhagen does in accordance with his central thesis - that the photograph was taken in order to. make a photograph.

This is only one of the many distortions of photographical sources by the media and, unfortunately, by historians. A carelesness which would be unthinkable with written sources. These distortions of images (certainly those made by perpetrators) are more than wrong, they lead to a distortion of facts. Take the Ivangorod-photograph. Its distortion created an opportunity for Holocaust-deniers such as R. Faurisson (see my previous mail) to suggest that the perpetrator wasn't aiming at the woman with child but at somebody who was threatening her! This ludicrous suggestion (why should a photographer let out the 'real' perpetrator?) 'works' by halving the photograph, one changes the perspective of photographer and looker-on (less horizon, less foreground, photograph taken at a closer distance) and one can get the impression that the perpetrator is not aiming at the woman. This pervers interpretation isn't possible at all with the complete and authentic photograph.
Most sincerely,
Gie van den Berghe University of Ghent (Belgium)

Van den Berghe subsequently alerted me to the full photo being on his website, and which I reproduce below.



The conclusion of all this is that the photo, the full one this time, is going back up on my website here.

Thanks to all of you that researched this question or responded with what you know. The information you sent me, the responses above, and the speed with which this was done well displays the power of the Internet to get at the truth.