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Living Images and Gestures in Wartime: The Other as an Iconoclastic Figure Taking photographs of prisoners of war was a frequent practice (see Kleemola, this volume). Soviet POWs (Fig. 24) were presented surrounded by soldiers who guarded them, but most often they were shown performing manual labour. In the photographs from the Warsaw Uprising, German soldiers were photographed surrounded by the insurgents. The figures change, the roles become reversed, but the same patterns and gestures of oppression and submission are repeated. The same category of iconoclastic gesture includes photographs of prisoners of war or those captured during military action, for example, soldiers in Polish uniforms led by armed Germans. There is also a photo of the Polish soldiers, unarmed, their epaulettes have been taken away, two of them are saluting in a Nazi manner. This last photograph is particularly embarrassing for the collective memory in Poland. It served the purpose of defamation, and by the same token was meant to lower the morale of the enemy and is particularly painful for Polish viewers. There are also images (taken by invaders) that function as reminders or bear witness to destruction. We can include Figure 26 in this category. It was published in the German press in 1916 and showing a stopover of German troops on ground belonging to the church in the village of Michatéwka, near Przemysl. This picture also shows the destruction and desecration of a village church. The photo, if taken by a German, could be regarded as an iconoclastic blow, yet if taken by the conquered, it would present the cruelty of the enemy. Destruction of symbols of the previous order belongs among iconoclastic gestures (Gamboni 1997; Freedberg 2005). However, a number of the photographed images bear the character of an act of humiliation or defilement'” (see also Freedberg 2005 and his research on the Middle Ages). However, as Freedberg points out by way of an example, more modern images also sometimes depict traitors who are hanged (Ibid.: 262). Figure 25 represents a Nazi soldier in the destroyed Royal Castle in Warsaw. This image may be attributed with ‘liveliness’,'* a proof of a victory, a kind of momentary memorial (in contrast to statues analysed by Czarnecka, this volume). This category also comprises memorabilia from the triumphant escapade to the East, photographs of the victors taken in various cities and towns, postcards from the eastern front, images from victory parades, photos of street patrols or of deportations of the local population. There is a photo of a German soldier, standing against the ruins of a destroyed factory building, holds in his hands a portrait of Jézef Pitsudski as an act of interruption of the tradition and memory of the former authority. There are other According to Freedberg, dishonoring acts belong to the European tradition. He provides the examples dating back to the 15" century, where in order to publicly degrade someone, pictures were used. Sometimes it was enough to expose only the picture, but in many cases degrading elements were added to the picture. The point was to punish someone in the eyes of the people by punishing their image; to disgrace someone publicly by deforming, mutilating or hanging their likeness (2005: 252). 15 The term is used here in the sense that it was used by Mitchell who wrote about people behaving as if pictures were alive (Mitchell 2013). 61
