Jeff Spirer

These are photographs of Dachau, taken over two consecutive days in May of 2022. Both days were bitterly cold, with dreary skies that reinforced the devastating sight of the former concentration camp. I had visited Holocaust memorials in Amsterdam and Berlin over the prior week, looking without success for any evidence of my family.

The camp was oppressive. It was hard to breathe, it was almost impossible to look at the exhibits of photos, clothing, books, notes, and other records of what was at the camp.

I brought my camera, unsure of whether I would use it. It took time to see what I could possibly say. It was the grayness and the stillness that made the photos happen. Depressing. Frightening. Horrific. The prisoners were ghosts, not visible, but you could feel them in the empty space. Each building was a house of horrors. The fields where people were lined up and shot, the towers where guards aimed weapons at people, the deliberately primitive sleeping quarters and bathrooms. The crematorium and ovens more than anything. For me, the photos are about the things you can’t see as much as what you can see in them.

–Jeff Spirer

Photographs