It's the Real Thing: The Limits of Realism in Holocaust Visual Art

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes Notes 1 Examples of each include the abstract works of Balka, Kiefer, Rothko, and Stern, the documentary photographs of Margaret Bourke-White, and the autobiographical paintings and sketches of David Olère, Marty Kalb, and George Zielezinski. 2 Here, Hirsh references Debórah Dwork and Robert Jan van Pelt's contention that, although the gates of Auschwitz have, through photographs, come to symbolize the entrance of the death camp, they did not perform this function for many of the prisoners since many of them were driven immediately to Birkenau. Moreover, when the camp was extended in 1942, the gates were located inside the camp periphery. 3 These same images were employed ten years prior in Portraits des élèves du C.E.S. des Lentillères.