„Gdyby to był tylko głos nieba i chmur”. O (nie)banalności tła. Z fotograficznego albumu Karla Höckera
„If It Was only the Outer Voice of Sky and Cloud”. On the (Non-)banality of the Background. From the Photo Album of Karl Höcker

Summary/Abstract: This text is an attempt at interpreting the photographs depicting SS officers captured in the moments of holiday relax. After fulfilling their everyday duties in Auschwitz, the SS men – in Höcker’s pictures from his album – rest, walk, joke, sing, feast and flirt with women; they are cheerful, smiling and carefree. The study of the album – revealed only in 2007, consisting of 116 pictures taken between June and December 1944 – is an impossible study, a study of silence, of commenting voices, a study spread between black and white, photography and the world, words and aphonia, hell and its background. It is the account of helplessness – of the gaze, language and understanding.

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