Made History - Sovient WWII Potographs

Looking at the different photographs, I received a particular feeling that reminded me of the wars that happened in Africa, mostly Sierra Leone. The two images that caught my eye are the “Dimitrii BalTermants (1912-1990) GRIF Kerch, Crimea” and “Sergic Strunnikov (1907-1944) ZOYA KOSMODEMYANSKAYA, Partisan Heroine 1941”.

The first picture “Sergic Strunnikov (1907-1944) ZOYA KOSMODEMYANSKAYA, Partisan Heroine 1941” was an image of a dead lady. Her clothes were turned indicating that she must have been tortured well before her death which was a caused of being hanged. Looking closely to the image, even though its not in color, the woman’s face doesn’t give of any form of struggle or pain. It almost seemed like her death was something that she expected. I know if I was hanged both my eyes and mouth would have been wide open. The fact that someone could take a picture of her in that form indicates that she might have been left there to rot, as an example of to others. It was only minutes after when I read the history behind the photos that I realized that my judgments were rights. The lady in the photo was a leader called Zoya who stood up for her rights and was captured by Nazi soldiers who tortured and eventually killed her.

The second picture “Dimitrii BalTermants (1912-1990) GRIF Kerch, Crimea” was an image of grieving people. Whilst looking at the image my eyes were drawn to the grieving woman. I couldn’t help but to think of the wars that had been happening around. The feeling I got from the picture is that it must have been after a war in what was once a war field, and everyone is roaming around looking for most probably relatives or tying to identify the bodies. The fact that the bodies were not buried but left there to rot created a different emotion. I also realized that the dead bodies wee all male, which indicated that they were either soldiers or males that have been taken away from their families to help in the fights. Another thing that caught my eye was the solider that stood almost away from the bodies and doesn’t seem to give off any form of emotion.

The exhibition I thought was rather powerful in the sense that it created a type of atmosphere that one could relate to both with time and place.