Oldal 61 [61]
OCR
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 destruction 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 setting 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 documentation 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). 59
