Eerste razzia op joden Possibly 1941 - 1942

This photograph, of the first raid on Jews, was taken by an anonymous photographer in Amsterdam. I look at it, and I feel implicated. I imagine the photographer, camera in hand, a witness, trying to capture what is happening. The composition, divided into two parts, shows the horror and chaos of the raid, and the submission of the hostages. The greyscale tones, the hard lines, the grainy texture, all speak to the urgency and the pain of the moment. What did they think they were doing? Did they feel courageous, or terrified? Photography, like painting, is an act of witnessing and recording. It’s about trying to make sense of the world, about bearing witness to both its beauty and its brutality. These photographers, these painters, they’re all in conversation with each other across time, grappling with the same fundamental questions about what it means to be human.