Die Bilderserie der Deportation der Wiesbadener Jüdinnen und Juden am 1. September 1942

Die Bilderserie der Deportation der Wiesbadener Jüdinnen und Juden am 1. September 1942

In Koope­ra­ti­on mit dem Stadt­ar­chiv Wiesbaden

(Bild: Am 1. Sep­tem­ber 1942 fand die letz­te der drei gro­ßen Depor­ta­tio­nen Wies­ba­de­ner Jüdin­nen und Juden vom Gelän­de des Schlacht­hofs unter Mit­wir­kung der Poli­zei statt.
StadtA WI, Samm­lung Richard Rudolph, Foto­graf: unbekannt.)

For reasons that remain unclear to this day, the depor­ta­ti­on of some 521 main­ly elder­ly Jews from Wies­ba­den and sur­roun­ding dis­tricts, via Frank­furt, to The­re­si­en­stadt on 1^st Sep­tem­ber 1942 was docu­men­ted in a series of pho­to­graphs by an alle­gedly unknown pho­to­grapher. This lec­tu­re exami­nes the pho­to­graphs as an his­to­ri­cal record, loo­king at what they com­mu­ni­ca­te to the view­er, the ways in which this com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on takes place and how, at times, the images act as a cor­rec­ti­ve to writ­ten accounts of the events. Dr. Drey­fus will dis­cuss the fea­tures that make this series distinc­ti­ve among the many sur­vi­ving depor­ta­ti­on pho­to­graphs from other cities. The talk also addres­ses some of the myths and mis­in­for­ma­ti­on that have coll­ec­ted around the pho­to­graphs in the public nar­ra­ti­ve and seve­ral insti­tu­tio­nal data­ba­ses and that per­sist, even though it is now eigh­ty years sin­ce the pho­to­graphs were taken and more than for­ty years sin­ce they ente­red the public domain and began to be spo­ken and writ­ten about.