Are any of the allegations that some Holocaust photos are frauds true?

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wm
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Re: Do any of the allegations that some Holocaust photos are frauds true?

#31

Post by wm » 07 May 2017, 21:06

That is a propaganda picture from the early thirties, showing enthusiasm of Soviet collective farmers for being made collective.
But it nicely illustrates the difference between the clothes worn by peasants women, and middle class women like the woman on the Ivangorod photograph.
As it's the thirties I believe the shoes were given them just for the photo session, and then taken away. In the thirties shoes were as rare as pink unicorns, especially in countryside.

The facts are:
- the photograph were copied thanks to a special operation of the Polish Underground,
- the people involved in the operation are well known, they risked their lives, some paid with their lives so we could criticized their work on our iPads,
- the photograph, and the accompanying photographs were labeled by a German as "Jewish action in Ivanhorod" and "Ukraine 1942",
- the other photograph shows: "five armed men", "a number of bodies on the ground", a "flat barren landscape is identical to that featured in the first photograph", "one of the uniformed men [looking] remarkably like the man pointing the gun at the woman and the child",
- there are no doubts whatsoever as to authenticity of both photographs.

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Sergey Romanov
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Re: Do any of the allegations that some Holocaust photos are frauds true?

#32

Post by Sergey Romanov » 07 May 2017, 23:47

wm wrote:The facts are:
- the photograph were copied thanks to a special operation of the Polish Underground,
- the people involved in the operation are well known, they risked their lives, some paid with their lives so we could criticized their work on our iPads,
- the photograph, and the accompanying photographs were labeled by a German as "Jewish action in Ivanhorod" and "Ukraine 1942",
- the other photograph shows: "five armed men", "a number of bodies on the ground", a "flat barren landscape is identical to that featured in the first photograph", "one of the uniformed men [looking] remarkably like the man pointing the gun at the woman and the child",
- there are no doubts whatsoever as to authenticity of both photographs.
I fully agree with this assessment with one exception: it doesn't seem like the man is pointing the gun at the woman. Indeed, had it been so unambiguously, I wouldn't have doubted the "mainstream" interpretation.


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Re: Do any of the allegations that some Holocaust photos are frauds true?

#33

Post by michael mills » 08 May 2017, 01:57

Has anybody ever seen this mysterious second photo, apart from Janina Struk? Indeed, did Struk see it herself, or was she just repeating a description?

The resemblances she draws between the two photos leave a number of questions open.

First, the "identical flat barren landscape". The landscape in the photo of the shooting is essentially featureless, and there is nothing to distinguish it from any other "flat barren landscape", of which there must be a wide expanse in the steppes of southern Ukraine. The only distinguishing feature is the patch of cultivated ground shown in the extreme right of the shooting photo, with an upright stake and two shovels lying on the ground.

So the question is: Do those features, the cultivated earth, the stake, the two shovels, also appear in the second photo?

Then there is the question of the bodies lying on the ground in the second photo. Struk does not give any description of them, or say how many there were. Do those bodies consist of (or include)

- two women wearing white headscarves and long overcoats
- three men (or perhaps one man and two boys( wearing cloth caps
- two bareheaded women wearing what appear to be town clothes
- a child?

Are the bodies lying in the same position as those of the eight civilians shown in the shooting photo? Are they positioned close to the cultivated earth, the shovels etc.

Finally, the Germans. The shooting photo shows one man in Ordnungspolizei uniform aiming a rifle, and two other rifles pointing from the left, so there were at least three men with rifles; the two not shown in the photo were quite probably also Ordnungspolizei men. There was also the person taking the photograph, so there must have been a minimum of four Germans present at the scene of the shooting.

The second photo shows five armed men, so a total of six including the photographer, two more than in the shooting photo. That is not conclusive, since there could easily have been two other armed men present at the shooting scene who were not captured in the photo.

However, the claim that one of the armed men appearing in the second photo bears a strong resemblance to the man aiming the rifle in the shooting photo is open to question. The face of the shooter is in shade and his features are not very clear; the only real element of identification is the Ordnungspolizei uniform he is wearing.

However, four of the five armed men in the second photo are apparently in uniform, since one of them is stated to be in civilian clothes. If all four of those men are wearing the same Ordnungspolizei uniform as the shooter in the shooting photo, then there is nothing to specifically link any one of them to the shooter, unless three of them are markedly different physically, ie they are shorter, taller, fatter etc. It cannot be possible to pick out one of the four men in the second photo as the shooter in the first photo from facial features, since the shooter's facial features are rather obscured in the shooting photo.

Thus, Struk simply does not give enough detail to verify her claim that the shooter is shown in the second photo.

The inscriptions on the reverse of the two photos are inconclusive, since we do not know for certain who wrote them or when they were written. The fact that the handwriting is the same on both photos is also not conclusive, since handwriting can fairly easily be copied by a competent calligrapher, of which the UB probably had at least one.

In short, this issue can only be resolved by an examination of the second photo. Has wm seen it? Can he direct us to a site where it can be viewed?

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Re: Do any of the allegations that some Holocaust photos are frauds true?

#34

Post by history1 » 08 May 2017, 08:46

wm wrote:[...]
The facts are:
- the photograph were copied thanks to a special operation of the Polish Underground,
[...]
- the photograph, and the accompanying photographs were labeled by a German as "Jewish action in Ivanhorod" and "Ukraine 1942",
[...]
Facts? I guess the only fact is that the Polish Underground did copy this photo. Maybe only for propaganda goals.
Who was the German sending this photo home?
How do you know that a German labeled the photo and not only someone from the Polish Underground?
BTW, I´ve seen hundreds of photos with incorrect transcribtions of the text, or documents with incorrects transcribtions and translation by others. Eg.names in the Mauthausen Death Book on Fold3, in books published by the Auschwitz Museum and Memorial, at the photo archive of Yad Vashem.
Here´s a photo from a Roma/Sinti harvester which took members of the German Gendarmerie. Take a view on the landscape and try to identify the country.
Attachments
harvester.jpg

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Re: Do any of the allegations that some Holocaust photos are frauds true?

#35

Post by wm » 08 May 2017, 11:13

history1 wrote:Facts? I guess the only fact is that the Polish Underground did copy this photo. Maybe only for propaganda goals.
Kurt Vieweg recognized their atypical uniforms and weapons, and testified those people were his colleagues from Police Battalions of the Ordnungspolizei. And those people didn't drink tea there, they executed people.

Of course everything is possible, even that the Underground falsified both photos. It would require lots of work but was doable.
But such an operation is unknown, they didn't falsify photos for propaganda purposes. All their black/grey/white propaganda operations are well researched and well known.

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Re: Do any of the allegations that some Holocaust photos are frauds true?

#36

Post by michael mills » 08 May 2017, 14:13

wm,

Have you seen the second photo yourself?

If so, can you provide answers to the points I raised in my previous post?

It may well be that the group of civilians shown in the first photo were being taken out to be shot by a group of German Ordnungspolizei. But if that is the case, then it is unlikely that the scene shown in the first photo represents the planned execution, because it is too chaotic. It could be that the Ordnungspolizei were prompted to start shooting before the planned place of execution had been reached, perhaps by an attempt to escape on the part of some of the civilians.

The shooting photo has all the hallmarks of being unplanned and uncomposed, ie the photographer captured this scene by chance, when he was preparing to photograph a different scene, such as that of the group of civilians being escorted by the Ordnungspolizei men, or perhaps lining up to be shot.

Genuine photos of executions taken by German participants or observers (contrary to orders!) typically show the victims lined up ready to be shot, often standing at the edge of a pit. The photo in question is really quite anomalous.

https://genocidecoursemsu.files.wordpre ... 05/eg3.jpg

In any case, there needs to be an explanation for the patch of turned-up soil shown at the extreme right of the photo, of the upright stake and of the two shovels lying on the ground next to the group of civilians. There is no pit visible, and the soil appears to be the edge of a cultivated field. Those elements are more compatible with a work party than with a planned execution.

One interpretation that I have seen is that the civilians were peasants working in the fields who were chanced upon by a group of German policemen, who took it into their heads to shoot them, perhaps for a bit of fun. That is a possible interpretation, but not the most plausible one in my view.
Last edited by michael mills on 08 May 2017, 14:24, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Do any of the allegations that some Holocaust photos are frauds true?

#37

Post by michael mills » 08 May 2017, 14:21

And those people didn't drink tea there, they executed people.
They did drink tea if it was offered to them by the local people. Or maybe it was a different beverage.

But there are plenty of photos of German personnel being offered food and drink by local people, particularly in Ukraine.

The members of the Ordnungspolizei battalions or of the Waffen-SS did not spend every minute of every day executing people. They spent a lot of their time interacting with the local people, for example watching displays of folk-dancing by comely Ukrainian maidens in traditional costume.


http://c8.alamy.com/comp/DYYWPX/german- ... DYYWPX.jpg

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Re: Do any of the allegations that some Holocaust photos are frauds true?

#38

Post by Sergey Romanov » 08 May 2017, 21:31

The description was in German, so it was most likely not done by the Polish underground.

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Re: Do any of the allegations that some Holocaust photos are frauds true?

#39

Post by wm » 08 May 2017, 22:05

michael mills wrote:The members of the Ordnungspolizei battalions or of the Waffen-SS did not spend every minute of every day executing people. They spent a lot of their time interacting with the local people, for example watching displays of folk-dancing by comely Ukrainian maidens in traditional costume.
I would say it was rather young German soldiers who "went native", policemen and gendarmes were the least likely. It was hard to be friends with a policeman with Godlike powers, constantly brainwashed with master race propaganda.

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Re: Do any of the allegations that some Holocaust photos are frauds true?

#40

Post by wm » 08 May 2017, 22:11

michael mills wrote:Genuine photos of executions taken by German participants or observers (contrary to orders!) typically show the victims lined up ready to be shot, often standing at the edge of a pit. The photo in question is really quite anomalous.
Not always, another photo obtained during a similar operation by the AK. There are no doubts about its authenticity.
Polish women, victims of the AB Action, led to execution:
Image


michael mills wrote:Has anybody ever seen this mysterious second photo, apart from Janina Struk? Indeed, did Struk see it herself, or was she just repeating a description?
The magazine ( Świat - Tygodnik Ilustrowany from 1962 ) isn't available in the usual digital libraries, only in a few random traditional libraries.
It's a rarity. But full year collections of that magazine are available cheaply from time to time on online auction websites, and I intend to buy it.

It was a high quality magazine, the best and famous Polish writers and journalists worked there, so unfortunately people rather tend to sell it rarely.

michael mills wrote:One interpretation that I have seen is that the civilians were peasants working in the fields who were chanced upon by a group of German policemen, who took it into their heads to shoot them, perhaps for a bit of fun. That is a possible interpretation, but not the most plausible one in my view.
I don't believe it. It wasn't like policemen could wantonly killed kolkhoz workers (as a rule all the peasants worked for German kolhozes). Probably happened, but the least in Ukraine. It would be seen as sabotage.

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Re: Do any of the allegations that some Holocaust photos are frauds true?

#41

Post by wm » 08 May 2017, 23:09

Sergey Romanov wrote:I fully agree with this assessment with one exception: it doesn't seem like the man is pointing the gun at the woman. Indeed, had it been so unambiguously, I wouldn't have doubted the "mainstream" interpretation.
The problem is no clues are available to decide where the gun is pointed.
Usually the eye use geometry of an object, its details, or its shading to decide. But here nothing is available.

In the end, an unknown larger object seems to be closer than an unknown smaller object.
Here the gun is thinnest at its further end, and bleeding of the background light makes it even more thin. This is interpreted by the eye that the barrel being further away from us, and the much larger stock closer to us, so the gun seems to be not pointed at the woman.

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Re: Do any of the allegations that some Holocaust photos are frauds true?

#42

Post by michael mills » 09 May 2017, 01:03

Not always, another photo obtained during a similar operation by the AK. There are no doubts about its authenticity.
This photo does not show an execution, ie German soldiers shooting at the victims.

It only shows victims being led to an execution site ( I believe the site is usually identified as Palmiry).

The actual execution most probably followed the standard pattern, ie the victims drawn up in a line, the German soldiers forming a firing squad facing them. In other words, totally different from the scene shown in the Ivangord photo.

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Re: Do any of the allegations that some Holocaust photos are frauds true?

#43

Post by michael mills » 09 May 2017, 01:14

The problem is no clues are available to decide where the gun is pointed.
That is precisely the problem.

For example, the two rifles pointing into the photo from the left side appear to be aiming at the man in uniform who appears to be aiming at the running woman holding a child.

Thus, a possible interpretation of the scene shown in the photo is that the man in uniform is trying to shoot the running woman, while two unseen persons to the left are trying to shoot the man in uniform in order to prevent him from shooting the running woman.

That would be consistent with a scenario where three German Ordnungspolizei agents are accompanying a work party of peasants in a field where they are digging over the soil. One of the policemen goes mad and starts shooting at the working party. The other two policemen then shoot him, because what he is doing is illegal (as wm has told us).

That interpretation verges on the absurd, but it is just as plausible, based on the evidence of the photo alone, as any other interpretation.

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Re: Do any of the allegations that some Holocaust photos are frauds true?

#44

Post by history1 » 09 May 2017, 14:21

wm wrote:[...]
But such an operation is unknown, they didn't falsify photos for propaganda purposes.[...]
wm, no one needs to falsify photos. It´s enough to take them out of context, adding wrong informations or to hide correct informations as whole or partially.
Eg. sorry but I don´t remember the name of this polish girl, she was ~22 years and member of the Polish Underground were she was engaged as medic. A nurse like myself and that´s why her fate is so touching to me. Sadly she got caught during the Warsaw Uprising (AFAIR) when reloading weapons during heavy fights with the occupant. Well, this is not something what a medic is supposed to do.
Later she was brought to Auschwitz and murdered there with an injection in her heart.
In some books published by the Auschwitz Museum and Memorial the relevant background isn´t mentioned, just that she was a Polish nurse and murdered in Auschwitz. You see, no one needs to fake photos for propaganda, it´s enough to construct the caption to reach your goal.
This girl wasn´t murdered because she was a Polish nurse, she was murdered because being a member of partisans loading weapons to kill Germans.

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Re: Do any of the allegations that some Holocaust photos are frauds true?

#45

Post by history1 » 09 May 2017, 14:27

Sergey Romanov wrote:The description was in German, so it was most likely not done by the Polish underground.
What a naive claim.
In Katyn they also found cartridges of German weapons, though the world know nowadays that the murderer were Soviet Russians.

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