Mridula Sharma 

A former concentration
camp overflows with
dead bodies that were
denied food, shelter and
safety by SS guards.
A photographer enters
this graveyard to capture
the vestiges of brutality:
one photograph gets
framed in a national
museum; another gets
published in a magazine;
yet another finds a home
within the pages of a
dissertation that attempts
a semiotic analysis of
holocaust studies.

These pictures expose
the bullet wound on an
old woman’s thigh; the
protruding ribcage of
a young malnourished
boy; the expression of
perpetual exhaustion
engraved on yet another
dead face that seems
like an undistinguishable
part of the giant pile of
lifeless frames that died in
an unfortunate genocide.

The women don’t know
that their bony breasts
are being viewed by
millions in a famous
museum to investigate
a fraction of the truth
that such photographs
entail. Infants who died
in brutal camps
before learning their
alphabet are now gaining
possibly unwanted popularity.
These white, cold bodies
were not asked
for permission: they were
not consulted, not asked
whether or not
the public is authorised
to view, to examine, to criticise
the physical forms of their bodies
that were once alive.

But how do we ask the dead?
How do we anticipate the
time when the question
seems reasonable to
the individual whose
existence is threatened?
How do we even know
if the dead have rights to
their bodies after their death?

If the request gets denied
by the breathing bodies, then
how do we preserve some
traces of a history that will
remain unvalidated in the
absence of concrete samples,
colourful pictures, proofs?

On ‘Photographs’

This poem primarily aims to initiate discussion on the process of photographing the dead. Though necessary to document remnants of bodies that have been torn apart from genocidal violence, at what cost are tourists, viewers, and audiences engaging in the process of dehumanisation?

The photograph accompanying this poem is courtesy of © Angana Narula.