by Richard Raskin
Widely regarded as the most haunting image we have of the Holocaust, the photo
of a young boy with his hands up being driven from the Warsaw ghetto has served
as a touchstone for everyone from the Nuremberg prosecutors to Elie Wiesel, and
from Susan Sontag to revisionist ranters on the web. Yet despite its enduring
status in both popular and academic circles, this touchstone of inhumanity has
elicited surprisingly little sustained commentary.
In this book, Richard Raskin
provides the first extended consideration of this photo by examining it from
multiple perspectives. He begins by attempting to describe it objectively as a
photographic artifact, carefully detailing its components and composition. He
then presents a history of how it came about: to illustrate a report that SS
General Jugen Stroop compiled in 1943, documenting for Himmler how he had
crushed the ghetto uprising that spring. The next chapter is devoted to the
claims made for the identity of the boy with his hands up, as well as for the
other captives and the SS man with the machine gun.
The remainder of the book addresses some representative artistic and polemical uses to which the image has been subjected. Raskin analyses its role in a TV series, a film, a poem and a series of paintings, supplemented by interviews with the artists responsible. In the final chapter, which despite its even-handed tone is bound to provoke controversy, he examines how critics of Israeli policy have used the photograph during the past twenty years to suggest Palestinian parallels to the Holocaust.
Clearly and movingly written, A Child at Gunpoint will engage the general
reader as well as specialists in photography, Holocaust studies, Judaica and
World War II. Highly recommended for libraries.
Readers of The HyperTexts will be interested to know that Yala Korwin, a
THT featured poet, has a poem in A Child at Gunpoint. Her poem is
entitled "The Little Boy with His Hands Up," and she considers it the
most important poem of her career: the poem she wants to be remembered by.
A Child at Gunpoint can be ordered from:
The David Brown Book Company
P.O. Box 511
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USA
Telephone: 1-800-791-9354 (Toll-free)
E-mail: david.brown.bk.co@snet.net
Website: www.davidbrownbookco.com
The David Brown Book Company accepts Discover, VISA, Mastercard and American Express credit cards. If visitors prefer to pay by check (US dollars only), they must remember to add freight costs (and tax if applicable in the State where they live).
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