The photographs of an Auschwitz prisoner Wilhelm Brasse taken at the concentration camp for the Nazis. The Reich was obsessed with bureaucratic records and setup ‘Erkennungsdienst,’ the photographic identification unit. The camp’s commander discovered Brasse’s much needed technical skills to better document The Final Solution.
Concerning Brasse's work, a three-quarter frame with a prison headgear was required. Not yet fully emaciated, each subject calmly posed for the camera, following the directions of the photographer. Each subject stares off to the side, a little upward, as in many painterly portraits done at the time of the Renaissance. Open faces, accompanied with a beret, evoke many of the anonymous men of Renaissance painting.
Quietness, a calming atmosphere… a couple minutes of the Human Condition gave these prisoners a gift from the Past. Unexpected parallels of times, conditions, dignity ... stand against a particular evil. Renaissance as the law of survive.
A couple minutes of quietness, a calming atmosphere, and human attention gave these prisoners a gift from the Past. The unexpected intersection of time, history, physical condition, and bodily type serve as the basis against a particular evil. Visual parallels 500 years old point to bridges of life and question, “What remains?” and “What survives?”
