I’m a big fan of anything Morris does but his reflections are particularly useful since he made a fascinating documentary on McNamara a few years ago:
“How should we remember Robert McNamara? As an engaged public servant who participated in some of the most important decisions of the 20th century? A hawk who served as the chief architect of the war in Vietnam? A technocrat who never fully understood the moral implications of his policies? A hero who steadfastly worked to prevent the escalation of conventional war into thermonuclear conflict? All of the above?”
A Roundup of the Jews, Amsterdam, from Errol Morris’ “Bamboozling Ourselves.” Today’s installment, part six, looks at the collaboration of the Dutch in World War II. Here’s the caption:
A photo of a roundup (razzia) of Jews was made by Jack Dudok van Heel. Dudok van Heel was in contact with Fritz Kahlenberg in the group ‘The Hidden Camera.’ On a sunny spring day he photographed a calm roundup, as calm as silent churchgoers strolling to Mass on a sunny Sunday morning. The photograph was taken from the window of his in-laws’ house on the corner of the Albrecht Durerstraat and the Euterpestraat.
Note the armed Nazi in front (by the tree) and the Gentiles on the sidewalk looking as if they’re out for a stroll. Over 70% of Dutch Jews were rounded up on sunny afternoons like this and sent on trains headed east to the death camps (that’s three times the rate in France or Italy).
"You don’t test it because, at the point of being about to buy it, you’re in love! You’ve found something… It’s like being newly in love. Everything is candlelight and wine. Nobody hires a private detective at that point. It’s only years down the road when things have gone wrong that you say, “What was I thinking? What’s going on here?"
Part one of “Bamboozling Ourselves” in the New York Times promises to be about the Nazi-era Vermeer forgeries. Peter Schjeldahl looked at some recent books about this October in a New Yorker article called Dutch Masters and it’s a fascinating topic, almost Indiana Jones-esque the way the art and politics come together.
I was mesmerized by Errol Morris’ last series back in March, Who’s Father Was He?, about the history behind a Civil War photo that launched a famous orphanage. In September 2007 the NYTimes published Which Came First?, an investigation into a famous battle photograph from the Crimean War. You quickly learn there’s a lot more to Morris’ pieces than simply reverse-engineering proto-Photoshopping picture tampering.
