RIGHT: Retouched photograph, captioned
"transports into ghettos and extermination camps", in H. Eschwege, Kennzeichen
J, Berlin: Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, 1981.
This photo has been repeatedly presented as proof of inhumane deportations
of Jews into ghettos and extermination camps. The photo archives
of the Federal Railway Administration in Hamburg, however, reveal what
this picture really shows. It is a freight train crowded with German
refugees bound for the Ruhr region, standing in the Hamburg train station
in 1946. The unretouched photo shows double-decker passenger carriages
on their way to Lübeck, and on the right, parts of the Main Station
buildings. Both of these elements would have allowed for the photo location
to be identified as the Hamburg Main Station, and both were retouched
or cut out in the doctored version. This is by no means to say
that there were no deportations of Jews into ghettos or concentration
camps. The exposure of this forgery is only meant to urge a more
skeptical approach to alleged documentary photographs.
More Information.
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