CAMERA OBSCURA
A Pictorial History Exposed
A Pictorial History Exposed
THE ELEPHANT IN THE DARKROOM
AN UNPRECEDENTED PROVENANCE RESEARCH PROJECT
An accidental by-product of the near-simultaneous arrival in the Pale of Settlement of the first itinerant photographers and the so-called Jewish Enlightenment during the middle of the 19th century, pre-Second World War Lithuanian Jewish photographic culture—unquestionably one of the former civilisation’s greatest secular achievements—is estimated to have been responsible for the creation of more than 10 million unique photographs before the vast majority of its creators and practitioners were murdered during the Holocaust. The Elephant in the Darkroom is an unprecedented provenance research project whose primary purpose is to investigate and make publicly available all surviving information concerning the wholesale looting, expropriation, destruction and displacement of these magnificent images during Nazi Germany's occupation of Lithuania during the Second World War. Thank you for your patience while the initial results are uploaded. The project is a constantly evolving work in progress. Research continues.
In the meantime, The Elephant in the Darkroom Cheat Sheet is here.
CONTENTS
1 CASES
2 TIMELINE
3 GLOSSARY
4 CREDITS
5 LOST ART
6 SOURCES
The Elephant in the Darkroom is produced with assistance from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the EVZ Foundation and the German Federal Ministry of Finance,