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Perpetrators

Although perpetrators are seldom shown in these works, their presence is implied in numerous ways. Furthermore, despite their rare portrayal, the evidence of their cruelty found in these paintings speaks volumes about the way they were viewed by witnesses of the camp system.

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Leslie Cole, One of the Death Pits, Belsen. A view from one end of an enormous mass grave containing the emaciated remains of Belsen inmates. SS guards, guarded by British soldiers, can be seen throwing more bodies into the pit. The huts, tents, trucks and barbed wire fences of the Belsen compound are visible in the background, and smoke billows from larger buildings.

Leslie Cole
One of the Death Pits, Belsen. SS
guards
collecting bodies , 1945
oil, Imperial War Museum

Roman Halter, Shlomo 1. A head and shoulders portrait of the artist's brother with his arms outstretched in a manner evoking the Crucifixion. The style of the painting reflects the geometric shapes of stained glass windows. Within the shapes around him are smaller figures, including a family embracing in the upper portion of the canvas. Around the edges of the canvas are blocks containing Hebrew text.

Roman Halter
Shlomo 1, 1974-1977
oil, Imperial War Museum

'Bill', Prisoners Carrying Cement. In this cartoon, prisoners in blue and yellow uniforms line up to carry bags of cement from a waiting truck towards a storeroom. They are supervised by a large German guard standing in front of a smoking brazier. In the background are some large industrial chimneys and buildings.

'Bill'
Prisoners Carrying Cement, 1944
ink, Imperial War Museum

Official war artists such as Leslie Cole, Doris Zinkeisen and Edgar Ainsworth present perpetrators as a matter of fact. In One of the Death Pits, Belsen, Cole shows former SS guards collecting and throwing corpses into death pits as uniformed British troops look on. The former guards are depicted almost as anonymously as the dead bodies.

Decades later, Roman Halter portrays the mercilessness of the perpetrators through the depiction of the death of his brother. In Shlomo 1, we see the agonised torso of a Christ-like figure – his brother, hanged for trying to obtain extra food for fellow workers.

'Bill', a Jewish prisoner, depicts life in a Blechhammer prisoner of war camp in 1944. Although cartoons, they are still a perceptive record of the relationship between guards and workers. He shows the warmly-dressed and often portly-looking guards watching the workers – mostly downcast as they go about their work.

In Belsen 1945, Edgar Ainsworth shows a group of local German residents forced to witness the reality of life and death in the camps. Doris Zinkeisen in Human Laundry paints women washing and tending to the former female prisoners, contrasting the plump and healthy Germans with the skeletal forms of their charges.

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Edgar Ainsworth, Belsen. A scene of Belsen as witnessed by the artist. In the centre of the composition is an emaciated, elderly man dressed in a striped concentration camp uniform and wearing only one shoe. He is sitting on a slight rise in the ground above a pile of corpses, his back to a pillar. Behind him is another man, his back to the viewer. In the left of the composition, a group of three people stand and watch as a comparatively healthy-looking man and a woman lift a shrunken corpse by the shoulders and legs. This pair may be German citizens, forced to bury the dead at Belsen after liberation. Clouds of small black dots representing flies hover over the dead.

Edgar Ainsworth
Belsen, 1945
ink, Imperial War Museum

Doris Zinkeisen
Human Laundry, Belsen: April 1945
oil, Imperial War Museum

These individuals might not have actually maltreated the women they are now caring for, but they would have known something about the camps and been subjected to antisemitic propaganda. Is our attitude towards the spectators and nurses altered when we discover that they are not Allies but German?

Questions for consideration regarding perpetrators

Explore through theme

Perpetrators

Although perpetrators are seldom shown in these works, their presence is implied in numerous ways. Furthermore, despite their rare portrayal, the evidence of their cruelty found in these paintings speaks volumes about the way they were viewed by witnesses of the camp system.

Leslie Cole

Though members of the SS guards are not portrayed in all of these artworks, each image can be read for meaning regarding the artists' viewpoint of the perpetrators.

Roman Halter

Though members of the SS guards are not portrayed in all of these artworks, each image can be read for meaning regarding the artists' viewpoint of the perpetrators.

'Bill'

Though members of the SS guards are not portrayed in all of these artworks, each image can be read for meaning regarding the artists' viewpoint of the perpetrators.

Edgar Ainsworth

Doris Zinkeisen

'The stable was used to wash any living creatures down before sending them into hospital to be treated.

Each stall had a table on which to lay the patient - the German prisoners did the washing. The church was used as a hospital for those that were alive.'

Explore through theme

Perpetrators

Although perpetrators are seldom shown in these works, their presence is implied in numerous ways. Furthermore, despite their rare portrayal, the evidence of their cruelty found in these paintings speaks volumes about the way they were viewed by witnesses of the camp system.

Leslie Cole

Though members of the SS guards are not portrayed in all of these artworks, each image can be read for meaning regarding the artists' viewpoint of the perpetrators.

Roman Halter

Though members of the SS guards are not portrayed in all of these artworks, each image can be read for meaning regarding the artists' viewpoint of the perpetrators.

'Bill'

Though members of the SS guards are not portrayed in all of these artworks, each image can be read for meaning regarding the artists' viewpoint of the perpetrators.

Edgar Ainsworth

Doris Zinkeisen

'The stable was used to wash any living creatures down before sending them into hospital to be treated. Each stall had a table on which to lay the patient - the German prisoners did the washing. The church was used as a hospital for those that were alive.'

'The stable was used to wash any living creatures down before sending them into hospital to be treated.

Each stall had a table on which to lay the patient - the German prisoners did the washing. The church was used as a hospital for those that were alive.'