That Was Then. This Is Now

BY DEREK CLARK

I’m confused. After all these years of wanting to visit and photograph Auschwitz, I finally went, and it was indeed a moving experience as you would expect. But it’s also tainted by the realisation that we have already entered into a dark time in the present day that feels every bit as dangerous as the late 1930s. Auschwitz for me stands as a reminder of how dark and despicable humans can be, and that we can never go there again. But we are.

In the US, people are being rounded up and shipped to prisons in foreign countries without trial. We have no idea what is happening to them when or if they get there. Sound familiar?

Musk and his worshipers can stand on stage and perform a Nazi salute (repeatedly) and get away with it. We used to wonder how the German people could be convinced that what was going on back in the late ’30s and early ’40s was justified and right. But we can see it happening today and how Trump’s minions will say and do anything he thinks up. Soon it spreads outward, like blood on a tablecloth.

In Gazza, Israel is wiping out Palestinians left right and centre. Is it a case of the abused growing up to become the abuser? Can you imagine the outcry if the tables were reversed? It’s not alright to mass murder any race. Not Jew! Not Arab! Not Ukrainian! But the countries that fought against this during the Second World War are the same countries that support, supply weapons, or simply turn a blind eye to it all.

Sorry if I offend you, but there is no right side or wrong side. It’s just humans blowing the arses off each other as they always have done. But it’s always the innocent ones that get mass murdered while the cowards hide behind their desks or even armies.

Although I planned to write about my experience of visiting Auschwitz, that’s not what came out when I started typing (stream of consciousness and all that). But click on the music player below, look through these pictures and hope that we never see places like this again.

AUSCHWITZ ONE


AUSCHWITZ TWO - BIRKENAU

All pictures - Fujifilm X-E4 with Voigtlander 18mm f2.8. Except Berkenau entrance panoramic - X100VI

Derek Clark

Documentary photographer based in Scotland, UK. Winner of UK professional Photographer of the Year 2012 in the News category and member of The Kage Collective.