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10 Heartbreaking Colorized Holocaust Photos That Were Rejected By Everyone Until I Posted Them On Bored Panda
About five years ago I made a portfolio of colorized images of the Holocaust and reached out to various organizations dedicated to preserving the memory of this horrific period in history about the possibility of working with them. Many of them didn’t respond and the ones that did didn’t seem interested in colorized images of the Holocaust. They didn’t see what I saw, that colorized images of the Holocaust could help us to relate to the precious lives of the people that we had lost.
I abandoned the project until last year when I saw a news article in the New York Times that had been published on Holocaust Remembrance Day with shocking figures about the number of people who lacked basic knowledge of the Holocaust in the United States. The figures were especially high among Millennials.
I had posted artwork on Bored Panda before and the results had been nominal but it seemed like a good venue to reach young people so I uploaded my images and the results shocked me.
More info: joachimwest.com | Instagram
(Photo of wedding bands found during the liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp)
My email blew up immediately. People wanted permission to post the images on their website, they wanted to interview me, they wanted permission to report on the work. A local high school used the images in their discussion about the Holocaust.
(Photo of Anne Frank)
(Photo of a Polish girl – Czesława Kwoka – 1942)
The number of views that the article received on Bored Panda alone skyrocketed into the tens of thousands. With news sites from all over the world reporting on the story my expectations were exceeded. I’ve been extremely humbled by this experience.
(Photo from Auschwitz concentration camp)
This year as Holocaust Remembrance Day has come and gone my story has been republished and even more people have seen the images. I was even contacted yesterday by Channel 5 News in the UK about a television interview. Unfortunately, more articles have also been released with similar bad news about humanity’s poverty of understanding concerning the Holocaust. The problem is not endemic but global. The BBC reported that England is suffering from a similar problem to the United States.
(Photo from Poland in 1939)
We need to do something to improve the quality of education about the Holocaust because it is an important reminder of the terrible cost of human hatred.
(Photo from Poland in 1939)
While I consistently make work that interacts with social and political issues I do not specialize in colorizing photographs. There are many people who are better at it than I am and so this has all been very humbling for me. I hope that this will encourage people, no matter how imperfect they are, to step up and try to make the world a better place.
(Photo from Poland in 1939-40)
The most touching and humbling part of all of this has been the emails that I have received from people who wanted to tell me about their families experiences in the Holocaust. I started getting them again a few days ago and it is very humbling. We as humans are all precious to each other. We can’t live without each other. The cost of the lives lost in the Holocaust is unimaginable. We are all poorer because of what happened.
(Photo from Poland in 1939-40)
One of my favorite emails was from a young person whose grandmother had fought in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and only owned one picture of her. He wanted to thank me and to tell me about her story and show me her picture. When they asked me how they could go about getting the photograph colorized I went ahead and saved them some money and did it for them. I was a bit nervous to hear there response since I know that there are plenty of people who are better at this than I am but they responded that they loved it and that it meant the world to them. I’ve included the before and after images here.
(Photo from Poland in 1939-40)
I’m scared for the world right now. As it is said, “Those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it.” I’m worried that we are forgetting what is truly important. The world desperately needs more love and it needs less hate. This experience has reminded me that while there is a lot of hate out there, there is also a tremendous amount of love and love is a very powerful thing.
(Photo of a fighter in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising)
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What do you think ?
Amanda Miller Strowger 5 years ago
How can people be so ignorant in stating it never took place. I lost a lot of my family. Keep publishing more pictures let the nations see what atrocities went on. Never should this tragic event be swept under the carpet.
Diver Driver 5 years ago
Well said it is as silly as 9/11 deniers. It sickens me to think how people can and still do hate, "JEWS" or INFIDELS or MUSLIMS or REPUBLICANS or DEMOCRATS or fill in ________ .
Load More Replies...
Jeff Bratt 5 years ago (edited)
I always knew my grandfather had a wife and 3 children before the Holocaust and lost them all! and then married with my grandmother after the war, and one day he showed me a picture of him with his first wife and 3 children who were killed, it touched me too the bones and I started crying, as I am now a mother of 3 children, and to see him with his precious 3 children made me realize his loss
chandralekha shelar 5 years ago
I'm sorry to hear about your grandfather's first wife and children.. I hope and pray all these people are in a much much better place
Load More Replies...
Tahani 5 years ago
Thank you, they are stunning! Also in your picture of the bunks you can see Eli Wiesel, he is in the middle section totally on the right against the wooden frame. Photo of a Polish girl β CzesΕawa Kwoka β 1942 is the most haunting one to me... I wish I knew more of her. Poor soul, all of them...
Joachim West (Post author) 5 years ago
Thank you for the comment Tahani! I should have mentioned that in photo caption. I have a memory of Eli Wiesel coming to speak to my synagogue when I was young. I remember how moving his book "Night" was as well.
Load More Replies...
Beata SkibiΕska 5 years ago
everybody should visit Auschwitz (OΕwiΔcim) in Poland and see it all with their own eyes in the museum
Samhhain Cat 5 years ago
I hope they provide a lot of kleenex :( The Resistance Museum in Amsterdam is another fantastic museum.
Load More Replies...
Fonzie Bulldog 5 years ago
Just crying as the grown up man i am when i look at these pictures.So much pain and these young small humans who entered a world filled with hate and death.No way this world would survive in the long run.I have seen these picture in their original state some times before and it doesnt matter if they are in color or in black and white.They still tell at story of a time who still lives around us in many different forms.May these young souls who vanished in the World War 2 camps play in a distant heaven for ever and ever.
lunanoir69 5 years ago
Thank you, thank you, thank you for posting these, Joachim!!! We must NEVER FORGET!!!! Bless you!!
Lenny Valstar 5 years ago
Seeing those photos I always ask myself..Where are all those rings, all that gold, silver and platnia. stolen from those poor people!
Jane Bannister 5 years ago
Thank you, it makes my blood boil when people deny this happen- your pictures are amazing and heartbreaking all at the same time. Please please continue to educate! X
Chancey 5 years ago
I just do not understand how there can be so much hatred in a human being. We should all realize that we are all children of God regardless of race, color or creed. Looking at these photos makes me so extremely sad but I think it is important for today's youth to be educated on what happened during the holocaust to prevent history from repeating. Thank you Joachim!
Tyler Duffy 5 years ago
If I ever figure out time travel I swear to god none of this s**t will have ever happened. Would give anything to be able to go back in time with a group of 10 guys with today's weapons and fight these Nazi's before s**t got out of control.
Ruth Lee 5 years ago
Well done. Colour brings those black and white photos to life and makes it easier for one to identify with the real People that they were. Thankfully my father escaped on the kinder transport. I canβt fathom how people can deny the horror of the holocaust. We who have eye witness reports of this darkest part of human suffering must not let it become βjust history β and continue to educate people.
Diana Hockley 5 years ago
I can't imagine why there are people who maintain that the Holocaust never took place. This horrific event is well documented with photos and documentary film evidence taken at the time. To deny that this happened is to deny history and makes a mockery of people's lives.
Shanntelle Crowns 5 years ago
The colorized photos of holocaust is so vivid it's heartbreaking.
Kim Lorton 5 years ago
If we were to do DNA testing on all the hate groups, I am positive weβd find out that a good number of them, have some ancestry that includes the people they now act in hate and evil towards! Many would have Jewish and African American ancestry, and a few things they claim to hate with a passion, in them! There are very few people with what they call β pureβ ancestry. Migration was all over the world, and people moved around more than we do in this century. All for a better life, better treatment from others. We are a nation of immigrants. Even the president has an immigrant past in his family. Hate is learned, intolerance is learned! So, letβs stop teaching our children, how to hate and be intolerant of others. Otherwise, we are all doomed.
Doenutts 5 years ago
I need to know the stories behind each of these photos, how do I find this???
Joachim West (Post author) 5 years ago
The retouched color photographs are from Jugo Jaeger. You can read more about him and them here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Jaeger A great place to learn more about Anne Frank is to read her diary. It is very touching and sad. A great place to learn more about Auschwitz and the other concentration camps is to visit your local Holocaust Museum. I hope that this helps you get started on learning more about the Holocaust and these photographs.
Load More Replies...
Charmaine Blackley 5 years ago
I think this is a great project. However, i have lived in germany and the UK and i dont agree with thr people in the UK being ignorant of this event. It is taught in schools, both in germany and the UK and on tv you cant go a day without something being on the tv about it.
John Louis 5 years ago
The history of the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust is the final, complete summation of how evil takes a foot hold - is tolerated - comes to power - thrives - and the expanding whirlpool of devastation it yields.
Brenda Brooks 5 years ago
So glad I could see these I find it very hard to watch documentary but at the same time want to be educated about the holocaust.
Kerolos Saleib 5 years ago
This was so hard to watch. Very profound and effective to create awareness
Grumble O'Pug 5 years ago
The Faces of Auschwitz is doing amazing work. https://facesofauschwitz.com/ There is information about the people, too. It's astonishing that nazi scum rose to the top and behaved in such a despicable way. When I lived in the UK in the 80's, many rural people retained an active enmity toward Germans. I still wonder how they feel about parents and grandparents and so on, some seem now to me more at ease than a generation ago.
Laugh Fan 5 years ago
A few years back I was on a train coming out of London. Group of German teens got on and proceeded to be chatty and pretty loud. Happy and laughing. Doing no harm. Obviously annoyed a few people and when the teens got off at the next stop there was a bit of muttering from some people across the aisle going 'tut, Germans' and one man, probably in his 30s, said 'who won the war?' Me: Well, it certainly wasn't you.
Load More Replies...
Katinka Min 5 years ago
It's good that you did this. Too many people think 'Oh, this is sooooo long ago, this no loner relevant, today' (Siehe Gauland und HΓΆcke mit ihren unertrΓ€glichen Kommentaren). But it's not that long ago and as I could recently discover Anti-semitism is alive and well, in Germany. :-(
Trish Christoffersen 5 years ago
I knew people who barely escaped Berlin before the wall went up. It saddens me that young people don't know the horrors that happened not so long ago. The way this country is going....we may experience some of this in our lifetimes.
Laura Mish 5 years ago
I mean no offense by this, but is that picture of the rings even from the holocaust? Every ring in the picture looks absolutely identical. How could that be? Iβm sure there were variations of rings.
ZielonogΕowy Glowy 5 years ago
German's Hell....Everyone who talks about "Polish Death Camps" should be jailed for year to think and learn some history.
Heather Grover 5 years ago
I'm going to get hate mail for this. These pictures are beautiful and extremely necessary no doubt about that but I can't help but feel that the poster is validation hungry. Instead of talking about the picture itself in each post, they talked about themselves and their own occolades for doing the colorization. Shame to use someone else's horror to promote oneself.
Kandie Wolfe 5 years ago
The colorized pictures are also much clearer and makes the victims more personable. Anyone who thinks there was no Holocaust have deep seated mental issues. It's just like people who believe 9-11 was a government conspiracy.
Karsun Designs Photography 5 years ago
These are stunning, yet heartbreaking. Thank you for what you did.
Joan Rogers 5 years ago
I am a baby boomer and quite aware of the atrocities of the holocaust. I appreciate your efforts to enlighten/ educate those who are unaware or the most significant part of the 20th century. However I found the colorization of the photos nauseating. They donβt begin to have the same impact as the black and white. Itβs almost like you are trying to make them pretty. There was nothing pretty about any of this as I know you know. Maybe itβs the artificiality of the colors that makes it so abhorrent to me. s
Dian Parama Kosala 5 years ago
i wonder why some people still think holocaust is fake because Jew is like satan.. "you know who"
MaΕgorzata Dzida 5 years ago
To author: why did you sign the third photo: "Catholic girl"? The title says, she was 'Pole' - Polish girl - nothing about her faith. So, why?
Luna Rose 5 years ago
This is because she was a Polish Catholic girl one of the many victims whose life was taken at Auschwitz. A simple google search and you would've found this as well.
Load More Replies...
Joachim West (Post author) 5 years ago
I'm familiar with the Faces of Auschwitz project. It didn't exist when I started doing this. About two years later I heard about her story and am honestly very happy for her and for all of us who will benefit from her work. I just imagined that colorized photographs of the holocaust were more impactful than non-colorized photographs and wanted to see that tool being utilized by organizations that reach out to teach people about the holocaust. I reached out with the idea and didn't find success but I'm very happy that now they are using it. This is actually my first attempts at colorizing photographs and I'm sure that I could be better at it. I did it because I saw a need and I'm happy that someone is working to fill that need and really I'm also very humbled by the idea that I could take a "failed" and "flawed" project like this one and reach so many people and hopefully remind them that we must never forget the Holocaust.
Load More Replies...
Martha Meyer 5 years ago
You are right that there have been many genocides, but why claim that makes the Holocaust less horrible?
Load More Replies...
Kiahna 5 years ago
No. Not here. Go comment on another post. Not this one.
Load More Replies...
Amanda Miller Strowger 5 years ago
How can people be so ignorant in stating it never took place. I lost a lot of my family. Keep publishing more pictures let the nations see what atrocities went on. Never should this tragic event be swept under the carpet.
Diver Driver 5 years ago
Well said it is as silly as 9/11 deniers. It sickens me to think how people can and still do hate, "JEWS" or INFIDELS or MUSLIMS or REPUBLICANS or DEMOCRATS or fill in ________ .
Load More Replies... Jeff Bratt 5 years ago (edited)
I always knew my grandfather had a wife and 3 children before the Holocaust and lost them all! and then married with my grandmother after the war, and one day he showed me a picture of him with his first wife and 3 children who were killed, it touched me too the bones and I started crying, as I am now a mother of 3 children, and to see him with his precious 3 children made me realize his loss
chandralekha shelar 5 years ago
I'm sorry to hear about your grandfather's first wife and children.. I hope and pray all these people are in a much much better place
Load More Replies... Tahani 5 years ago
Thank you, they are stunning! Also in your picture of the bunks you can see Eli Wiesel, he is in the middle section totally on the right against the wooden frame. Photo of a Polish girl β CzesΕawa Kwoka β 1942 is the most haunting one to me... I wish I knew more of her. Poor soul, all of them...
Joachim West (Post author) 5 years ago
Thank you for the comment Tahani! I should have mentioned that in photo caption. I have a memory of Eli Wiesel coming to speak to my synagogue when I was young. I remember how moving his book "Night" was as well.
Load More Replies... Beata SkibiΕska 5 years ago
everybody should visit Auschwitz (OΕwiΔcim) in Poland and see it all with their own eyes in the museum
Samhhain Cat 5 years ago
I hope they provide a lot of kleenex :( The Resistance Museum in Amsterdam is another fantastic museum.
Load More Replies... Fonzie Bulldog 5 years ago
Just crying as the grown up man i am when i look at these pictures.So much pain and these young small humans who entered a world filled with hate and death.No way this world would survive in the long run.I have seen these picture in their original state some times before and it doesnt matter if they are in color or in black and white.They still tell at story of a time who still lives around us in many different forms.May these young souls who vanished in the World War 2 camps play in a distant heaven for ever and ever.
lunanoir69 5 years ago
Thank you, thank you, thank you for posting these, Joachim!!! We must NEVER FORGET!!!! Bless you!!
Lenny Valstar 5 years ago
Seeing those photos I always ask myself..Where are all those rings, all that gold, silver and platnia. stolen from those poor people!
Jane Bannister 5 years ago
Thank you, it makes my blood boil when people deny this happen- your pictures are amazing and heartbreaking all at the same time. Please please continue to educate! X
Chancey 5 years ago
I just do not understand how there can be so much hatred in a human being. We should all realize that we are all children of God regardless of race, color or creed. Looking at these photos makes me so extremely sad but I think it is important for today's youth to be educated on what happened during the holocaust to prevent history from repeating. Thank you Joachim!
Tyler Duffy 5 years ago
If I ever figure out time travel I swear to god none of this s**t will have ever happened. Would give anything to be able to go back in time with a group of 10 guys with today's weapons and fight these Nazi's before s**t got out of control.
Ruth Lee 5 years ago
Well done. Colour brings those black and white photos to life and makes it easier for one to identify with the real People that they were. Thankfully my father escaped on the kinder transport. I canβt fathom how people can deny the horror of the holocaust. We who have eye witness reports of this darkest part of human suffering must not let it become βjust history β and continue to educate people.
Diana Hockley 5 years ago
I can't imagine why there are people who maintain that the Holocaust never took place. This horrific event is well documented with photos and documentary film evidence taken at the time. To deny that this happened is to deny history and makes a mockery of people's lives.
Shanntelle Crowns 5 years ago
The colorized photos of holocaust is so vivid it's heartbreaking.
Kim Lorton 5 years ago
If we were to do DNA testing on all the hate groups, I am positive weβd find out that a good number of them, have some ancestry that includes the people they now act in hate and evil towards! Many would have Jewish and African American ancestry, and a few things they claim to hate with a passion, in them! There are very few people with what they call β pureβ ancestry. Migration was all over the world, and people moved around more than we do in this century. All for a better life, better treatment from others. We are a nation of immigrants. Even the president has an immigrant past in his family. Hate is learned, intolerance is learned! So, letβs stop teaching our children, how to hate and be intolerant of others. Otherwise, we are all doomed.
Doenutts 5 years ago
I need to know the stories behind each of these photos, how do I find this???
Joachim West (Post author) 5 years ago
The retouched color photographs are from Jugo Jaeger. You can read more about him and them here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Jaeger A great place to learn more about Anne Frank is to read her diary. It is very touching and sad. A great place to learn more about Auschwitz and the other concentration camps is to visit your local Holocaust Museum. I hope that this helps you get started on learning more about the Holocaust and these photographs.
Load More Replies... Charmaine Blackley 5 years ago
I think this is a great project. However, i have lived in germany and the UK and i dont agree with thr people in the UK being ignorant of this event. It is taught in schools, both in germany and the UK and on tv you cant go a day without something being on the tv about it.
John Louis 5 years ago
The history of the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust is the final, complete summation of how evil takes a foot hold - is tolerated - comes to power - thrives - and the expanding whirlpool of devastation it yields.
Brenda Brooks 5 years ago
So glad I could see these I find it very hard to watch documentary but at the same time want to be educated about the holocaust.
Kerolos Saleib 5 years ago
This was so hard to watch. Very profound and effective to create awareness
Grumble O'Pug 5 years ago
The Faces of Auschwitz is doing amazing work. https://facesofauschwitz.com/ There is information about the people, too. It's astonishing that nazi scum rose to the top and behaved in such a despicable way. When I lived in the UK in the 80's, many rural people retained an active enmity toward Germans. I still wonder how they feel about parents and grandparents and so on, some seem now to me more at ease than a generation ago.
Laugh Fan 5 years ago
A few years back I was on a train coming out of London. Group of German teens got on and proceeded to be chatty and pretty loud. Happy and laughing. Doing no harm. Obviously annoyed a few people and when the teens got off at the next stop there was a bit of muttering from some people across the aisle going 'tut, Germans' and one man, probably in his 30s, said 'who won the war?' Me: Well, it certainly wasn't you.
Load More Replies... Katinka Min 5 years ago
It's good that you did this. Too many people think 'Oh, this is sooooo long ago, this no loner relevant, today' (Siehe Gauland und HΓΆcke mit ihren unertrΓ€glichen Kommentaren). But it's not that long ago and as I could recently discover Anti-semitism is alive and well, in Germany. :-(
Trish Christoffersen 5 years ago
I knew people who barely escaped Berlin before the wall went up. It saddens me that young people don't know the horrors that happened not so long ago. The way this country is going....we may experience some of this in our lifetimes.
Laura Mish 5 years ago
I mean no offense by this, but is that picture of the rings even from the holocaust? Every ring in the picture looks absolutely identical. How could that be? Iβm sure there were variations of rings.
ZielonogΕowy Glowy 5 years ago
German's Hell....Everyone who talks about "Polish Death Camps" should be jailed for year to think and learn some history.
Heather Grover 5 years ago
I'm going to get hate mail for this. These pictures are beautiful and extremely necessary no doubt about that but I can't help but feel that the poster is validation hungry. Instead of talking about the picture itself in each post, they talked about themselves and their own occolades for doing the colorization. Shame to use someone else's horror to promote oneself.
Kandie Wolfe 5 years ago
The colorized pictures are also much clearer and makes the victims more personable. Anyone who thinks there was no Holocaust have deep seated mental issues. It's just like people who believe 9-11 was a government conspiracy.
Karsun Designs Photography 5 years ago
These are stunning, yet heartbreaking. Thank you for what you did.
Joan Rogers 5 years ago
I am a baby boomer and quite aware of the atrocities of the holocaust. I appreciate your efforts to enlighten/ educate those who are unaware or the most significant part of the 20th century. However I found the colorization of the photos nauseating. They donβt begin to have the same impact as the black and white. Itβs almost like you are trying to make them pretty. There was nothing pretty about any of this as I know you know. Maybe itβs the artificiality of the colors that makes it so abhorrent to me. s
Dian Parama Kosala 5 years ago
i wonder why some people still think holocaust is fake because Jew is like satan.. "you know who"
MaΕgorzata Dzida 5 years ago
To author: why did you sign the third photo: "Catholic girl"? The title says, she was 'Pole' - Polish girl - nothing about her faith. So, why?
Luna Rose 5 years ago
This is because she was a Polish Catholic girl one of the many victims whose life was taken at Auschwitz. A simple google search and you would've found this as well.
Load More Replies... Joachim West (Post author) 5 years ago
I'm familiar with the Faces of Auschwitz project. It didn't exist when I started doing this. About two years later I heard about her story and am honestly very happy for her and for all of us who will benefit from her work. I just imagined that colorized photographs of the holocaust were more impactful than non-colorized photographs and wanted to see that tool being utilized by organizations that reach out to teach people about the holocaust. I reached out with the idea and didn't find success but I'm very happy that now they are using it. This is actually my first attempts at colorizing photographs and I'm sure that I could be better at it. I did it because I saw a need and I'm happy that someone is working to fill that need and really I'm also very humbled by the idea that I could take a "failed" and "flawed" project like this one and reach so many people and hopefully remind them that we must never forget the Holocaust.
Load More Replies... Martha Meyer 5 years ago
You are right that there have been many genocides, but why claim that makes the Holocaust less horrible?
Load More Replies... Kiahna 5 years ago
No. Not here. Go comment on another post. Not this one.
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