Auschwitz-Birkenau

[Guest]

I don't want to make a big thing of this but ever since we visited Auschwitz-Birkenau I have been puzzled why the standard view, seemingly implying that behind the arch you would have found the horrors, typically shows two rail tracks merging to one and leading through the arch. Today's Times shows the same view stating that " (one of) Dieudonné's followers (is) copying his gesture outside Auschwitz", my emphasis. However this aerial view

http://en.auschwitz.org/m/index.php?option=com_ponygallery&func=detail&id=1483&Itemid=3

clearly shows that the track divides into sidings inside the compound. Why do photographers/ sub-editors etc. regularly choose the view which is showing the way to the outside?

[french frank]

clearly shows that the track divides into sidings inside the compound. Why do photographers/ sub-editors etc. regularly choose the view which is showing the way to the outside?

Same file picture used each time? I'm afraid I couldn't face the visit while I was staying in Kraków.

[Flosshilde]

Journalistic lazyness probably.

[Dave2002]

However this aerial view

http://en.auschwitz.org/m/index.php?option=com_ponygallery&func=detail&id=1483&Itemid=3

clearly shows that the track divides into sidings inside the compound. Why do photographers/ sub-editors etc. regularly choose the view which is showing the way to the outside?

"clearly": Maybe I'm not experienced in these things, but I can't see any sidings from the photos.

[Serial_Apologist]

"clearly": Maybe I'm not experienced in these things, but I can't see any sidings from the photos.

You're not alone, then. I'm puzzled by the raison d'etre of this whole thread.

[clive heath]

Sorry about this but my browser takes me straight to the picture you will find under Aerial Photographs showing the single rail track passing under the arch and dividing into three sidings inside the compound. My simple point is that the traditional view is of tracks combining and leading through the arch with the implication that they lead into the place of horrors. They do not, they lead out.

http://en.auschwitz.org/m/index.php?option=com_ponygallery&func=detail&id=1483&Itemid=3

Maybe this will work. It does so here but I notice that in the preview the full url is truncated and replaced centrally by .... Could this be the problem?

[Flosshilde]

Three sidings? Like Dave & SA I couldn't se even one, but then looked more closely & decided that what I took to be a wall - the pinkish bit to the right of the main track beyond the buildings - was a siding. But three? I don't think so (even if you mean two sidings and a main line). & if there are two sidings it confuses your OP, in which you say that there are two tracks in the usual photograph.

Why is this thread on the 'Politics & current affairs' thread, as the subject is neither? Unless you thing that journalists are deliberately misleading people for some nefarious political reason?

[clive heath]

To the last point, I didn't think it had any musical connotation. To the other points, yes, the " pink wall" is between two tracks/sidings and a third. Clicking the picture enlarges it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_concentration_camp

takes you to Wiki, where the top picture "The main entrance to...." is a picture taken from inside the camp. One usually expects entrances to be photographed from the outside. I am sure there is no deliberate misleading going on but to me, having visited some years back, it feels wrong. I am happy to leave it at that if you are.

For two tracks:

http://www.auschwitz.org/

[french frank]

Surely, an easier test is the lower of the two archways which carries the road in and out of the compound - it's either to the right of the tower, going out

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Birkenau_gate.JPG

or to the left, going in

http://en.auschwitz.org/m/index.php?option=com_ponygallery&func=detail&id=1483&Itemid=3

The second archway shows up clearly in the mist.


Sorry, as you were ... I just thought ...

[Flosshilde]

To the last point, I didn't think it had any musical connotation. To the other points, yes, the " pink wall" is between two tracks/sidings and a third. Clicking the picture enlarges it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_concentration_camp

takes you to Wiki, where the top picture "The main entrance to...." is a picture taken from inside the camp.

Which they do acknowledge in the notes to the picture when you click on it to enlarge it - English: The main gate at the former German Nazi death camp of Auschwitz II (Birkenau). Note that this is inside the camp looking back from the loading ramp to the "Gate of Death".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Birkenau_gate.JPG

& the three lines can be seen.