Verlof in Duitsland 1940 - 1943

This is an album, Verlof in Duitsland, by an anonymous artist, that's housed in the Rijksmuseum. I’m thinking about this arrangement of photographs, and I’m wondering, what was it like to take these images and place them so carefully in the album? Each image seems to be in conversation with the others, as if the artist was telling a story in a non-linear, spatial manner. Maybe they are like a storyboard for an unrealized film. I wonder what was going through the artist's mind as they put this together. Were they reliving certain memories or creating a totally new narrative? Maybe this act of arranging was a way to make sense of a confusing world, organizing and categorizing memories as a way to better understand them. The artist probably had to make some hard choices about what to include and what to leave out. The artist's eye moves with an understanding of composition and the visual qualities of photography. What a beautiful, evocative conversation across images!