Witnessing the Looting of Jewish Belongings During the Holocaust: What Can History Do with Images?

Abstract

Since 2000, there has been a great increase in studies on the spoliation of Jews in France. This research has established the chronology and topography of antisemitic spoliation, identified its actors and assessed its scale. In doing so, it has led to the formulation of new questions. Previous research sought a precise understanding of the linkage between the quest for economic gain and the implementation of racial extermination at the very core of the looting process. New research, which varies greatly in its scale and scope, draws on an ever-wider range of sources, some of which were never previously studied, and employs many innovative methodological approaches. However, so far, it has paid no attention to archival images, which have been used merely for the purposes of illustration. Yet such photographs constitute documents that can help us to understand precisely how the actors involved in this looting actually viewed their work. This article examines an album of 85 photographs of the looting of Jews in Paris that has been preserved in the federal archives of Koblenz under the shelf mark B 323-311.