Een Wehrmacht soldaat met een kind op zijn arm op een bruggetje Possibly 1940 - 1945

This small, snapshot photograph shows a Wehrmacht soldier holding a child, probably taken during World War II. It’s an image awash with gentle grays and soft contrasts, like memory itself. I’m drawn to the surface quality. It’s not just what’s depicted, but how it feels to hold this moment frozen in time. The slightly faded, almost blurry quality speaks to the passage of time, and the way memories shift and soften around the edges. Look closely at the child’s face, caught in a moment of innocent joy, and then to the soldier’s eyes, shadowed by his helmet. It’s this tension, between light and dark, innocence and experience, that holds the photograph together. It reminds me of the work of Gerhard Richter, who used blurry, out-of-focus imagery to explore themes of memory, history, and trauma. This small photograph does something similar, inviting us to contemplate the complexities of war and the human moments that persist within it.