“Lest We Forget”: Bringing Atrocity Home Through Large Photomurals

ABSTRACT

The ‘Lest We Forget’ exhibition opened on Memorial Day, May 30, 1945, just over a month after the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen and Dachau concentration camps where many of the photos were shot. Twenty-five enlarged atrocity photomurals, ranging up to 12 feet high and 19 feet wide, were hung in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch building’s mechanical annex. Over the course of three and a half weeks, 80,413 people visited the exhibition in St. Louis, Missouri. The exhibition then traveled the US in the summer of 1945, including stops in Boston, Detroit, and the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. The ‘Lest We Forget’ exhibition used the photomural medium to share the atrocities that Americans read about and saw small photographs of in newspapers in a new way. While photomurals were widespread in the decades leading up to the exhibition, photomurals of atrocity photographs were uncommon. Did the scale of the photomurals affect the experience of viewing atrocity images? What did American politicians think of the exhibition and how it could impact public opinion? How did visitors react to the exhibition throughout the US? Were there similar exhibitions abroad? My article deals with these questions by piecing together sources ranging from newspaper articles to exhibition photographs and a government speaker draft. Starting with the exhibition’s visual landscape and an analysis of the photomurals’ scale, this article then turns to the American government and civilian experience, before closing with an analysis of the London exhibition and publication. By sharing large-scale atrocity photomurals in a collective setting, the ‘Lest We Forget’ exhibition evoked new, emotional reactions from visitors.

KEYWORDS:

• Exhibition history
• US postwar
• scale
• photomurals
• public memory of the Holocaust
• collective memory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Joseph Pulitzer quoted in Janina Struk, Photographing the Holocaust: Interpretations of the Evidence (London and New York: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd, 2004), p. 131.

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

2 ‘Lest We Forget’ is not an exclusive phrase to this exhibition or to the Holocaust. The phrase is commonly used for various remembrance occasions, especially related to war commemorations. Norman Krasna also narrated a color film in 1945 entitled Lest We Forget that was shot in Buchenwald. See https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1004371

3 “Post-Dispatch Exhibit of Atrocity Pictures 10 am to 10 pm Today,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 3, 1945.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 See H. H. Slawson, “Giant Pictures from Pigmy Prints,” Mechanix Illustrated (August 1938): pp. 52–55, 137, 145–146. Accessed at https://archive.org/details/mechanix.-illustrated.-1938.08/page/52/mode/2up?view=theater

8 “Life-Size Photos of Nazi Atrocities to Be Exhibited,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 29, 1945.

9 The scope of this article does not allow me to explore the exclusion of Jews in the exhibition extensively and I hope it, along with the repression’s impact on public memory, will be developed elsewhere in the future.

10 An Army Signal Corps atrocity film was simultaneously shown in the Kiel Auditorium Opera House in St. Louis.

11 Olivier Lugon, “Photography and Scale: Projection, Exhibition, Collection,” Art History 38, no. 2 (April 2015): p. 391.

12 Michael Tymkiw, Nazi Exhibition Design and Modernism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2018), p. 124.

13 Romy Golan, Muralnomad: The Paradox of Wall Painting, Europe 1927–1957 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), p. 135.

14 Ibid., p. 123.

15 Romy Golan, “The Medium of the Decade: The Photomural in 1937,” in Monika Wagner and Helmut Lethen, (eds.), Schwartz-Weiss als Evidenz: “With Black and White You Can Keep More of a Distance,” (Frankfurt and New York: Campus Verlag, 2015), p. 97.

16 See a photograph of the photomural at https://www.loc.gov/resource/fsa.8b16216/

17 “Road to Victory,” MoMA, accessed January 15, 2023, https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/3038

18 The Museum of Modern Art, “For Release: Two Famous Americans Arrange Road to Victory Exhibition at Museum of Modern Art,” May 13, 1942, accessed at https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_press-release_325317.pdf?_ga=2.189023853.718545824.1672446702-420703624.1672446702

19 “Nazi Atrocities Picture Exhibit Given to City, Accepted by Mayor,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 25, 1945.

20 Ibid.

21 In my understanding, the photomurals and didactics differed slightly at the various venues.

22 “66,349 In Missouri, Illinois Viewed Atrocity Pictures,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 15, 1945.

23 “Nazi Atrocities Picture Exhibit Given to City, Accepted by Mayor,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 25, 1945.

24 Ibid.

25 From April 19 to May 25, 1945, the Jewish Labor Committee presented an exhibition in the Vanderbilt Gallery in New York titled “Martyrs and Heroes of the Ghetto: An Exhibition Dedicated to the Second Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.” This exhibition did not travel, focused on the Warsaw ghetto, and did not include many atrocity photographs.

26 “Life-Size Photos: Process by Which Pictures in Post-Dispatch German Atrocity Exhibit Were Enlarged,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 10, 1945.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid.

29 The visible exhibition terminology is very broad and general, reflecting the larger exhibition attitude towards Jews and understanding of the Holocaust at this point in 1945.

30 In the years since, this photograph has become a well-known image from Buchenwald, largely because Elie Wiesel is featured in it. Wiesel is pictured in the second row of bunkbeds seventh from the left. The exposure this exhibition gave this photograph likely contributed to its current status as an “iconic” liberation photograph.

31 Froma I. Zeitlin, “The Vicarious Witness: Belated Memory and Authorial Presence in Recent Holocaust Literature,” History and Memory 10, no. 2 (Fall 1998): pp. 5–42.

32 Jennifer L. Roberts, “Introduction: Seeing Scale,” in Jennifer L. Roberts (ed.), Scale (Chicago: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2016), p. 12.

33 Lugon, “Photography and Scale,” p. 388.

34 Ibid.

35 Paul Williams, Memorial Museums: The Global Rush to Commemorate Atrocities (Oxford: Berg, 2007), p. 98.

36 Eisenhower quoted by Washington Correspondent of the Post-Dispatch, “Atrocity Photos Exhibit June 30 in Washington,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 20, 1945.

37 Ibid.

38 Jeffrey Shandler, While America Watches: Televising the Holocaust (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 6.

39 See Library of Congress, “German Atrocity Pictures Invitation,” (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1945).

40 Washington Correspondent of the Post-Dispatch, “Atrocity Photos Exhibit June 30 in Washington,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 20, 1945.

41 Library of Congress, “Draft for possible use on Saturday, June 30” (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1945), p. 1.

42 Ibid., p. 2.

43 Ibid., p. 3.

44 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Evening Star, and Library of Congress, Lest We Forget: St. Louis Post-Dispatch and The Evening Star of Washington DC: Exhibit of German Atrocity Pictures (Life-Size): June 30–July 14, 1945 (St. Louis: St Louis Post-Dispatch and Evening Star, 1945). Accessed through USHMM: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/bib230480

45 Ibid., p. 1.

46 Joanna Fiduccia, “Scale of the Nation: Alberto Giacometti’s Miniature Monument,” Art History 45, no. 1 (February 2022): p. 129.

47 Lugon, “Photography and Scale,” p. 394.

48 Clifford Berryman cartoon in “Murals on Nazi Atrocities Go On Exhibition This Afternoon,” Evening Star, June 30, 1945, image 1, found in Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1945-06-30/ed-1/seq-1/

49 Ibid.

50 Ibid.

51 “Grew Deeply Moved by Exhibit Of Nazi Atrocity Photomurals,” Evening Star, July 14, 1945, image 13, found in Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1945-07-14/ed-1/seq-13/

52 Ibid.

53 Ibid.

54 Ibid.

55 “Huge Photo of Scene in Nazi Prison Camp to Feature Exhibit,” Evening Star, June 25, 1945, image 15, found in Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1945-06-25/ed-1/seq-15/

56 Omer Bartov, “Chambers of Horror: Holocaust Museums in Israel and the United States,” Israel Studies 2, no. 2 (Fall 1997): p. 72.

57 Staff Correspondent of the Post-Dispatch, “Atrocity Exhibit Opening Published In Congress Record,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 7, 1945.

58 “Thousands See Life-Size Photos of Nazi Prison Camp Atrocities,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 31, 1945.

59 Ibid.

60 Ibid.

61 Y. Asckenasy, “After Viewing the Horrors,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 4, 1945.

62 Ibid.

63 Ibid.

64 Dave Ellman, “Pictures Everyone Should See,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 22, 1945.

65 Ibid.

66 Ibid.

67 Ibid.

68 Ibid.

69 Sam B. Armstrong, “London Sees Nazi Atrocity Photos, Reacts to Them as St. Louis Did,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 18, 1945.

70 Ibid.

71 Ibid.

72 Ibid.

73 Ibid.

74 Ibid.

75 “German Atrocity Photomural Exhibit Will Close Tomorrow: 78,219 Persons Have Seen Pictures At Congress Library,” Evening Star, July 21, 1945, p. B-10, image 21, found in Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1945-07-21/ed-1/seq-21/

76 Ibid.

77 See Daily Mail, Lest We Forget: The Horrors of Nazi Concentration Camps Revealed for All Time in the Most Terrible Photographs Ever Published (London: Associated Newspapers Ltd, 1945).

78 I was one of the exhibition’s curators, alongside Judy Tydor Baumel-Schwartz, Scott Miller, and Ilona Moradof, and with consulting curators Michael Berenbaum and Paul Salmons. There are over 750 original objects, over 350 photographs, over 150 testimonies, and additional historical footage, maps, timelines, and more on view. See https://mjhnyc.org/exhibitions/the-holocaust-what-hate-can-do/

79 Struk, Photographing the Holocaust, pp. 133–134.

80 Sharon Sliwinski, “A Painful Labour: Responsibility and Photography,” Visual Studies 19, no. 2 (October 2004): p. 154.

81 Ibid.

82 Struk, Photographing the Holocaust, p. 132.

83 “High Command Must Have Known of Atrocities, Says Gen. Bradley,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 12, 1945.

84 Sliwinski, “A Painful Labour,” p. 159.

85 There is a larger debate on the usefulness of looking and exhibiting atrocity photographs which is out of the scope of this article.

86 Struk, Photographing the Holocaust, p. 133.

87 Susie Linfield, The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2010), p. 22.

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Rebecca Frank

Rebecca Frank is the Curatorial Research Assistant at the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York. She earned a B.A. in History and Jewish Studies from Cornell University in 2019, and an M.A. in Holocaust Studies from the University of Haifa in 2020. During her studies, Rebecca interned at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Yad Vashem, the Jewish Museum, NYC, and the Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum.