L’évidence des photos aériennes d’Auschwitz

Abstract

At stake in the aerial pictures of Auschwitz was not visual evidence but ethical evidence, a call to responsibility with regards to the possibility of allied bombings. This is especially true when we fantasmatically consider the reverse low-angle view of prisoners looking to the sky and for whom bombings seemed to offer the only possible escape. This essay is concerned with the pragmatic effect of these aerial images — the non-intervention that resulted from them ¿ and with the discourses that have mobilized around them. For instance, during the 60s and 70s historians Brugioni and Poirer justified the inaction of the allies by invoking the limitations of photographic technology during the war. Current discourse published alongside these photos today (on various websites) offer a rhetoric that is no less innocent.