oppressors themselves are hardly to be seen here; this is because they are mostly on the other side. They dominate everything, however, in power as well as in action. They exercise their power of terror from behind what constitutes one of the recurring figures in this set of images: the ghetto wall, often photographed for itself, in alternately empty and overcrowded streets, as a place of misery or apparent urban “normality.” The ghetto wall would, therefore, serve as the impersonal symbol, but also the primary technical framework, of the policy pursued by the Germans: to lock up, isolate, starve, exterminate.”
One of the photos in this part is a take of the cemetery gate on Okopowa Street. It reflects an atmosphere of confinement; shows hierarchy - inside the ghetto. From the photographer's perspective, there is the Jewish Law Enforcement Service (Jewish police) right behind the gate of the Polish Police (known as the Navy Blue Police), and a German officer Ordnungspolizei ("Orpo”) in the centre of the passageway, who oversees both the Polish and Jewish police. Everyone in the photograph is looking at the camera, indicating that the photographer is not hiding the camera - so he has permission to take pictures, but does not get too close to the gate and keeps a safe distance. The picture is part of a larger group of photographs documenting significant changes in the ghetto borders, which the Germans imposed in the autumn of 1941. The changes also affected the Foto-Forbert workshop, which was forced to relocate again, and its author is probably Henryk Bojm. [photo 4]
Didi-Huberman writes about the second part of the photos as follows: “The second paradigm corresponds to the paradox that the enclosed life of the ghetto had its own administration, the Judenrat [...] this government of the oppressed, itself drawn into a spiral of impossible negotiations with the “masters,” perverse compromises, injustices and ill-treatment of all kinds, all this despite its desire to “do the best,” in such torment, for the people of the ghetto. [...] If the wall is a symbol of the first paradigm, the uniform of the Jewish police could serve the same function with regard to the pragnieniu, by, pośród takiej zawieruchy, „działać dla dobra” ludności getta. [...] O ile mur stanowi symbol pierwszego paradygmatu, to mundur policji żydowskiej mógłby pełnić taką funkcję dla drugiego paradygmatu. […] Żydzi polscy, którzy przyjęli tę brudną robotę jako gwarancję pewnych przywilejów: przywilejów bardzo prowizorycznych, ponieważ oni, tak jak inni, stracą w końcu wszystko i zostaną zamordowani.”
"Gate to the cemetery”. Okopowa Street and the cemetery were separated from the ghetto, and as from February 1942, the dead can only be accompanied up to the gate. Photo by Henryk (Jechiel) Bojm (?), Foto-Forbert