Extraordinary collection of 5,000 WWI photographs salvaged from RUBBISH DUMPS by a fo

[Aristaeus]

Bob Smethurst spent years saving images of soldiers from landfill because he could not bear to see them destroyed
'I found the majority of photographs in the 70s and 80s when those who fought were probably passing away'
As well as pictures he has also found letters, postcards and even bullets hidden in the rubbish




http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...tographs-WWI-heroes-action-RUBBISH-DUMPS.html

 

[LoveMyHats2]

Very interesting and it seems this man has done a wonderful thing to save what he did. I have my Father's pictures from WWII and my Husband saved pictures he had from when he was in the service. In some way, it makes me think that by having these pictures from the past, it sort of gives those individuals immortality, they can live on within the moment of the picture being taken.

 

[sheeplady]

My husband's one grandfather served in the Pacific. His son (my husband's uncle) was cleaning out the house after both grandparent's passed away, he threw out tons of photos rather than dealing with splitting them up among the family. Luckily another person who was taking care of the house found them in the trash and passed them onto my father-in-law. Among the photos (including some childhood photos of my husband and his cousins) were pictures from when his grandfather was serving.

This is how this stuff happens... people get overwhelmed when cleaning out a home and they just throw it out rather than dealing with splitting it up.

 

[esteban68]

even sadder is the fact that the British government has sold off all the war records from WW1 and 2 and that people whose family served and in some cases died have to pay for the privilege looking up their relatives service!

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I think I mentioned it in another thread but the one that always puzzles me is when someone passes on the family will sometimes throw away photographs and other mementos because it's too much of a painful reminder. So why even have them in the first place if that's their thinking?

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think I mentioned it in another thread but the one that always puzzles me is when someone passes on the family will sometimes throw away photographs and other mementos because it's too much of a painful reminder. So why even have them in the first place if that's their thinking?

Sometimes they're thrown out as a final break from an unpleasant family situation. For all we know those people in random pictures we find at the dump might have been vicious SOBs in real life, and the family is glad to be rid of any memory of them.

 

[LoveMyHats2]

I think I mentioned it in another thread but the one that always puzzles me is when someone passes on the family will sometimes throw away photographs and other mementos because it's too much of a painful reminder. So why even have them in the first place if that's their thinking?

When my Husband's Father passed away, his Mother was advised by many of the family friends, to go into his room and clear it out (they thought it would help her get over the lose easier). A few weeks later, she was not so happy with following that advice, far too many things she would have wanted to pass down had already been tossed, and it made some feelings of loss be even worse.

I would hope that people could recall, as you have stated, there was a purpose for taking pictures, saving things from a child's growing up days, school papers, cards, letters, it is what really gives individuals "Immortality" as we can look back and spark wonderful memories from those items. Our history should always have a wonderful worth and value. It speaks to the rest of the world, "this is who we are".

 

[sheeplady]

I think I mentioned it in another thread but the one that always puzzles me is when someone passes on the family will sometimes throw away photographs and other mementos because it's too much of a painful reminder. So why even have them in the first place if that's their thinking?

In some cases that is perfectly understandable. I have a friend from middle school who was sexually abused by her father. (She is very open about this and wouldn't mind me sharing it.) Her mother and father divorced when she was a teen, and she never say him again. He had made her executor of his will and her and her sister were the only beneficiaries. The sister wanted no part of the estate and there wasn't any money to clean out his house. So my friend went and dumped everything out except what was worth money. She took the stuff to a pawn shop, sold it, and put her sister's half of the money into bank accounts for her two kids. (The sister didn't even want the money.)

That ******* didn't deserve to live as long as he did yet alone have his daughters keep his photographs around.

While I doubt that most families have a dark a past as this, you never know. Childhood abuse of all kinds is much more common than I think we realize. No one should feel they have to keep images around of their abuser.

 

[LizzieMaine]

While I doubt that most families have a dark a past as this, you never know. Childhood abuse of all kinds is much more common than I think we realize. No one should feel they have to keep images around of their abuser.

It doesn't even have to be that drastic. I tossed anything having to do with my father a long time ago -- he didn't abuse me, he was simply a shiftless no-account bum. Who needs mementoes of somebody like that?

 

[Stearmen]

The Green Fields of France

[video=youtube;Kqba0IUdiBk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqba0IUdiBk[/video]

 

[sheeplady]

Not knowing much about WWI (and particularly the aftermath), in the video above there is a picture where there is a pile of skeletons next to an open mass grave (around 3:03). Were their bodies being reclaimed for burial elsewhere?

I knew a gentleman growing up who was part of the U.S. military branch who freed many of the concentration camps or at least followed the men who did. (I was very young at the time and some of the details slipped through the cracks when I was told this later.) He was a photographer and was in charge of documenting the carnage. He had stolen away about 12 rolls of film (possibly more) that he developed and kept in his private collection. I know two people who saw his scrap books and no one could make it through them all after one or two they gave up. Both people said they were much much worse than anything they had ever seen on television, in books, or at a museum. I guess his concern (and the reason why he stole away the film canisters) is that he believed that the true amount of cruelty and devastation would never be shown to the public and the images might have been destroyed by the U.S. government.

I always wondered what happened to that man's collection when he passed away. He had shown it to one person I knew and offered it to them for free, but the person didn't want it because it made them feel ill. If your gut reaction was so violent, I imagine anyone cleaning out his house would have just tossed them. I know I wouldn't have been able to keep images like that in my home. He passed away just as the US holocaust museum was being built, and before the rise of the internet, so I doubt they made their way there. He wasn't a holocaust historian or collector, he just had these things because he was there, and I doubt at that time he could have found resources to connect to. I just hope they made their way someplace safe where they can surface for the general public.

The idea that there are much worse pictures out there of the holocaust than what have been made public really disturbs me on so many levels.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The idea that there are much worse pictures out there of the holocaust than what have been made public really disturbs me on so many levels.

The Signal Corps shot about 80,000 feet of motion picture footage of the various camps during and immediately after liberation. That's about 134 hours worth of footage, of which about 6000 feet, or one hour's worth, was used in a special compilation film assembled as evidence for use in the Nuremburg trials. Substantially less than that hour of footage was released to the civilian newsreel companies for public exhibition, and those are the clips you see over and over again in documentaries. These were the *least* horrifying and disturbing images in all that 80,000 feet of film.

 

[sheeplady]

The Signal Corps shot about 80,000 feet of motion picture footage of the various camps during and immediately after liberation. That's about 134 hours worth of footage, of which about 6000 feet, or one hour's worth, was used in a special compilation film assembled as evidence for use in the Nuremburg trials. Substantially less than that hour of footage was released to the civilian newsreel companies for public exhibition, and those are the clips you see over and over again in documentaries. These were the *least* horrifying and disturbing images in all that 80,000 feet of film.

You have to wonder why it was censored- was it because if it was shown it was feared there would be more animosity towards Germany? Or just because humans can only tolerate so much? Or it was/ is that bad that those responsible for editing it/ broadcasting it/ using it couldn't even handle it themselves?

While I understand the motivation to keep shocking and disturbing images off (particularly) broadcast media; I'm not sure if hiding those images serves the greater good. We've still got holocaust deniers running around, we haven't cured the world of anti-Semitism (although I shirk from calling the Holocaust "just" anti-Semitism because it goes layers and levels above that), nor have we cured the world of genocide. I understand that there is only so much senseless violence and hate a human being is capable of absorbing before shutting down, so perhaps there is fear that we could no longer discuss the Holocaust if we had those images in our heads.

 

[LizzieMaine]

You have to wonder why it was censored- was it because if it was shown it was feared there would be more animosity towards Germany? Or just because humans can only tolerate so much? Or it was/ is that bad that those responsible for editing it/ broadcasting it/ using it couldn't even handle it themselves?

While I understand the motivation to keep shocking and disturbing images off (particularly) broadcast media; I'm not sure if hiding those images serves the greater good. We've still got holocaust deniers running around, we haven't cured the world of anti-Semitism (although I shirk from calling the Holocaust "just" anti-Semitism because it goes layers and levels above that), nor have we cured the world of genocide. I understand that there is only so much senseless violence and hate a human being is capable of absorbing before shutting down, so perhaps there is fear that we could no longer discuss the Holocaust if we had those images in our heads.

It was a mix of reasons. Even aside from the Office of War Information, which controlled access to all military footage, you had corporate censorship at work.

The Big Five newsreel companies -- Paramount, Movietone, Pathe, Universal, and Hearst News of the Day -- were all affiliated with major movie studios, and were all members of the MPPDA, the organization which oversaw the Production Code. Released newsreels had to bear an MPPDA seal in order to be shown in MPPDA-affiliated theatres. The Production Code explicitly prohibited footage of excessively shocking or horrifying imagery, and even the material that *was* released skirted the edge of what was considered acceptable.

It wasn't just concentration camp footage that got held back because of this -- you saw very little gruesome war footage in stateside newsreels. You did occasionally see corpses -- even American corpses -- but nothing on the scope of what was seen in the concentration camp footage had ever been seen on American screens, and the film industry obviously didn't think Americans could handle it.

I think the most effective bit of journalism to come out of the camp liberations was Edward R. Murrow's "Murder at Buchenwald" broadcast. He describes exactly what he saw, in eloquent terms, and then expresses the hope that his descriptions have in fact shocked and disturbed his listeners. It's as powerful and hard-hitting as any film or photograph ever exhibited.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

The Signal Corps shot about 80,000 feet of motion picture footage of the various camps during and immediately after liberation. That's about 134 hours worth of footage, of which about 6000 feet, or one hour's worth, was used in a special compilation film assembled as evidence for use in the Nuremburg trials. Substantially less than that hour of footage was released to the civilian newsreel companies for public exhibition, and those are the clips you see over and over again in documentaries. These were the *least* horrifying and disturbing images in all that 80,000 feet of film.

I wonder if the compilation film shown at the Nuremberg Trials was the film that one of our World History teachers would show when I was in junior high school. We had two World History teachers, Mrs. G and Mr. H. Most of us dreaded the possibility of being in Mr. H's class because he was the one who showed the film when they were studying about Germany. We kids had heard about this film from friends and siblings who had been in Mr. H's class and had seen it that it took on an almost legendary status which was enhanced by the fact that you needed permission from your parents to see it.

As it turned out I never saw the film because I ended up in Mrs. G's class. Though when we were studying about Germany she invited a local militaria collector to bring some of his WWII German uniforms and give a talk on it! Now this was really amazing given the fact that Mrs. G grew up under German occupation of her native Greece during the war.

 

[newsman]

I think the most effective bit of journalism to come out of the camp liberations was Edward R. Murrow's "Murder at Buchenwald" broadcast. He describes exactly what he saw, in eloquent terms, and then expresses the hope that his descriptions have in fact shocked and disturbed his listeners. It's as powerful and hard-hitting as any film or photograph ever exhibited.

And if I'm not mistaken some of that footage was used in the trials and it was quite damning evidence. Not that you couldn't find plenty of it around. But here you had documentary evidence of it.

It's interesting to note in the Pacific there were not that many journalists involved with the major landings. However, the Marine's did have a new type of Marine...the journalist who did provide both copy and film of various events when they were not actively shooting (their primary function). The idea was that of a Washington Post journalist who asked the Commandant if such a thing could happen.