Scenes of the Second World War superimposed on images of modern streets
Auschwitz, 27 January 1945 of the year
“It's a bit like drawing, in which a brush is dipped in history instead of paints, ”says Yu Hedwig Tevissa.
The idea of this project called “The Ghost of History” came to her several years ago, when she managed to get on one of the flea markets of Amsterdam, in which she lives, several old negatives. “I was very interested in these photos, and I wanted to find out who made them and where. I started walking around Amsterdam, photographing the same places that were depicted in old photos, and then combining them on a computer. ” From 2007, her collection began to slowly grow. At first everything was simple - since she lived in Amsterdam, she herself knew the location of the shooting. But with the growth of the project, new images of the Second World War appeared, and she needed outside help. “Sometimes I posted a photo on the Internet and asked people if anyone recognized the place depicted on it. ... Now, in addition to this, I post old photos on Facebook and ask people who have recognized the location of the shooting to send me "today's" photos of this place. This method allows me to deal with the processing of photos taken far from the place where I live. ”
The installation process is very simple: “Overlay the old image over the new one, synchronize and remove the superfluous”. “It’s not the process itself that matters, since the computer handles most of the work and this is quite simple. It is important to decide what you want to show, what to delete and choose the place that is shown. If you choose right - the result will “tell” the whole story, it will make people think. ” Here are two photos that became sources for the one shown above:
The author of the upper photo is unknown, the author of the lower one is Tom Timmerman
The task of the project is to “distract people from everyday life and make them think about history; about something hidden, and sometimes forgotten, once happening where they now live. ” After all, not so long ago, the streets of Europe were places of battle.
The photo, which the author considers to be one of the most interesting, was made in the French city of Cherbourg, on rue Armand Levy. “People walk here every day, not suspecting that someone died here once.”
In the next photo, where the soldiers running down Avenue de Paris in Cherbourg are captured, the last soldier is made more transparent than the rest of the group. Perhaps this was done because he did not run. “So I think that someone has stayed, as if the story is all around, that it is standing nearby,” Tevissa told the author of the article in a letter.
People are waiting for the arrival of Allied forces in the Dutch city of Dayvendrecht; May 1945 of the year
German soldiers surrender; France, 1944 year
German soldiers, returning after capitulation to Germany, pass by a man with a Dutch flag, May 1945
German prisoners of war are escorted by American soldiers; Cherbourg, 1944 Year
Marie Ravenel Square, Cherbourg
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