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Living Images and Gestures in Wartime: The Other as an Iconoclastic Figure
War denotes political change. Some aspects of the process of change show the
potential of power presented in the form of pictures. Often, the images of the de¬
struction of the old order are taken as symbols of change. The scenes of destruction
differ from each other. Those from the beginning of the war depict random losses.
For example, Figure 15 shows the damaged streets of Warsaw and casual deaths at
the hands of Nazi bombs. The next picture is characteristic of the later phase of
the war (Fig. 16), when the Jewish people were being exterminated. The picture of
a burning synagogue can be treated as an example of an iconoclastic blow. A similar
instance of such scenes of destruction is Figure 17, representing a Nazi soldier set¬
ting fire to a building after the fall of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. This sequence
of representations of destruction shows the evolution of the imagery from docu¬
mentation of random destruction to attempts to convince the viewer of a rightfully
waged war and strip the enemy of dignity.
Another type of iconoclastic representation is the pictures of the incursion of
invading forces and the retreat of defensive troops. They can appear as images of
hostile forces, but also as those which, entering a town, bring in a new order. Most
often, this moment was perpetuated as antagonistic and forceful; otherwise, the
friendly welcome on the part of local inhabitants was usually stressed, because such
images helped to influence the public, especially those who were less educated. This
can be considered an iconoclastic gesture demonstrating that belief in the former
order was false. Figures 18, 19 and 20 exemplify the idea.
The march of Russian troops along the main streets of Lddz (1915) is seen in
Figure 18. A march along the main public points of a city meant that the city was
taken under symbolic control. What can be broken here is the continuity of the
former order and the hope that derives from this continuity.
Figure 19 documents the Nazi German army entering Lviv. In the foreground
we can see soldiers in a truck driving through the streets in the direction of the Old
Town Square. On the left, local people, including women and children, welcome
the arrivals. Who are these people? Such photographs were usually staged. Most
often the first forces entering a town, for example on tanks, provoked fear and
uncertainty among the local population. The vanguard troops were not welcomed.
Several days later, new troops arrived to take over the local administration and
the scenes of welcome were usually photographed then.'° Figure 20 gives another
example of this public iconoclastic gesture, Lithuanian troops entering Vilnius
(1939). All the time, replacing the old order remains in contrast to embodying
the otherised opposite side, which represents the integration of the Other and
celebration of uniting or re-uniting it. In other words, it is difference between
‘them’ seeing the replacement as a positive change, and ‘we’ who in turn see it as
forced upon ‘us’ by the Others.
10 From an interview with an old man, the inhabitant of a small town (western Poland, July 2014).
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