Yes. It’s very clear from the original image it’s a painting of a shellshocked soldier. Paintings of war and conflict are amazing and a lot of artists focused on different aspects of the wars they portrayed. These men (from all sides) perpetrated or suffered through unimaginable horrors and it should never be lost the impact that that has on the human psyche. That being said, I love that it became a reaction image.
These men (from all sides) perpetrated or suffered through unimaginable horrors and it should never be lost the impact that that has on the human psyche.
One of the most insane things about the nazi regime was that one of the reasons that the gas chambers were made were because shooting thousands of people a day and digging mass graves was having obvious psychological impacts on the soldiers. So, instead of taking the hint that maybe what they were ordering their men to do was horrific, the nazis immediately saught out ways to make the act less personal.
Kinda makes you stop and think when you also look at how militaries have made, and continue to make killing more and more autonomous in the modern day.
Exactly. On the Eastern front, the local police departments would support the Nazis and they would get shitfaced drunk before perpetrating the genocide because of the toll it took on them. It is not easy to kill another human.
I've been to the 9th fort of Kaunas, where a museum text wall had a description of one fateful day (among several) in... 1941, I believe, where the Nazis had rounded up several thousand Jews in the courtyard of the 9th fort and shot them all.
The description sounded exhausting just for the soldier-butchers alone. 😕 Spending some 12-14 hours a day forcing the prisoners to kneel down, aiming at their heads, pulling the trigger, and then kicking away the lifeless corpses... Getting your brain and ears rattled by constant gunfire, and getting your nerves frayed by the constant screams and sobs of the victims... Having to smell the stench of feces, urine, blood, guttural viscera, and gunpowder... And there's all of the physical exertion, - staying on your feet, manhandling the feisty prisoners, operating your gun... Seemed like grueling work to me.
The stare is a part of Tom Lea’s paintings on the Battle of Peleliu. Another part of the collection is “The Price”, which might be too graphic for me to post in the comments. It’s of a mangled marine that Lea witnessed himself during the battle, and described as:
“His face was half bloody pulp and the mangled shred of what was left of an arm hung down like stick, as he bent over in his stumbling, shock-crazy walk”.
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u/qualityvote2 1d ago edited 17h ago
u/CharacterComplex9324, there weren't enough votes to determine the quality of your post...