A Photograph of Power and Silence: Sexual Violence and War on the Eastern Front (1939–1944)
Content warning : This article discusses sexual violence and wartime humiliation. It contains descriptions of rape and degrading treatment. Reader discretion advised. Staged photograph showing soldiers’ mockery and sexualized domination during occupation archival image, Romanian National Archives collection. A Photograph That Refuses to Stay Silent Some historical photographs shock not because of what they clearly show, but because of what they force us to confront . One such image, discovered in the Romanian National Archives, depicts a group of young German soldiers standing in a semicircle. They appear relaxed, laughing, even playful. At the center of the scene, one soldier performs a simulated sexual act over the body of an unidentified woman. Whether she was alive or dead at the moment the photograph was taken remains unknown. What is certain is this: the image strips the woman of humanity and turns her body into an object of ridicule, domination, and power. This photo...