Duke University Dissertation Template
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Mapping and Visualizing Testimonies of Spaces of Confinement: A Digital Analysis of the Kraków Ghetto by Christine Liu Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Paul Jaskot, Advisor ___________________________ Edward Triplett ___________________________ Mark Olson Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies in the Graduate School of Duke University 2019 i v ABSTRACT Mapping and Visualizing Testimonies of Spaces of Confinement: A Digital Analysis of the Kraków Ghetto by Christine Liu Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Paul Jaskot, Advisor ___________________________ Edward Triplett ___________________________ Mark Olson An abstract of a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies in the Graduate School of Duke University 2019 Copyright by Christine Liu 2019 Abstract The Kraków Ghetto was created in March 1941. Thousands of Jews lived in the blocks of the ghetto before it was liquidated two years later. Studies of Nazi ghettos often focus on the ideology behind ghettoization policies or the exceptional responses of individuals by means of covert action and resistance. There has been a lack of attention paid toward understanding the lives of those who lived in the ghetto or even investigations into developing a methodology for studying experiences of such space. Testimonies from survivors are rich sources of evidence that allow those who witnessed the ghetto to describe their own memories and perceptions. They are evidence of tough ethical situations that are otherwise difficult to imagine or capture. Digital methods offer ways to explore difficult spaces and to ask spatial questions about a ghetto that no longer exists. I use historical research and digital methods to create visualizations that might help us better understand experiences of the Kraków Ghetto. While testimonies dictate the narratives shown in each of my visualizations, an understanding of the specific media of audiovisual testimonies, and the mediating presence of collecting institutions and databases is critical to engaging with this body of evidence. In this project, I use ESRI’s ArcGIS Pro to create a map of the ghetto and 3D buildings from point-cloud data. Models are animated in Autodesk 3ds Max to visualize specific audio narratives from testimonies. While the Kraków Ghetto is the focus of study, this project argues that digital visualizations have the potential to capture the affective qualities of testimonies and illustrate ambiguous bodies of evidence. Developing a digital methodology is crucial to future studies into spaces of confinement. iv Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................ iv List of Figures .................................................................................................................................. vi 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 1 2. Understanding the Kraków Ghetto and Testimonies .................................................................... 6 2.1 The Ghettos of World War II ............................................................................................... 6 2.2 The Case of the Kraków Ghetto ........................................................................................... 7 2.3 Contextualizing Recorded Holocaust Testimony............................................................... 17 2.4 Studying Testimonies ......................................................................................................... 23 3. Place-making, GIS, and Affective Visualizations ...................................................................... 28 4. The Evidence of Testimonies ..................................................................................................... 37 5. A Digital Methodology ............................................................................................................... 43 6. Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 58 Appendix A ..................................................................................................................................... 62 Appendix B ..................................................................................................................................... 67 Testimonies and Archives............................................................................................................... 69 References....................................................................................................................................... 70 v List of Figures Figure 1: Map of the ghetto showing walls and gate locations. ....................................................... 9 Figure 2: Photograph of the main gate to the Kraków Ghetto. ....................................................... 11 Figure 3: Points from addresses listed in advertisements from 1941 issues of Gazeta Żydowska (Jewish Gazette).............................................................................................................................. 12 Figure 4: The ghetto divided into Ghetto A for the working population and Ghetto B for the non- working group. ................................................................................................................................ 15 Figure 5: Screenshot from the Visual History Archive’s user interface. ........................................ 37 Figure 6: Map depicting the major structural changes to buildings in the former ghetto. ............. 44 Figure 7: 2D viewshed of St. Joseph’s Church at a height of 70m. ............................................... 46 Figure 8: 3D sightline of St. Joseph’s Church with 2D viewshed analysis layered over the base map. ................................................................................................................................................ 48 Figure 9: Multipatch extracted from LIDAR in ArcGIS. ............................................................... 49 Figure 10: Screenshot of 3D buildings with roof forms extracted from LIDAR, note the attribute column “ROOFFORM.” ................................................................................................................. 51 Figure 11: Untextured city model in Autodesk 3ds Max. .............................................................. 52 Figure 12: View from the southeastern border of the ghetto at one end of Limanowskiego Street. ........................................................................................................................................................ 53 Figure 13: View looking down Jozefinska Street with the Central Hospital visible. ..................... 55 vi 1. Introduction Scholars, museum representatives, and educators alike are challenged to question our understanding of the past and the ways that the past has been studied. The question remains - how can we, as scholars of a modern era, look back at the same spaces others have already considered and apply new modes of seeing? Digital methods offer an opportunity to look anew at not just where things happened but also to consider what else was present in both a qualitative and quantitative sense. The close listening of survivor experiences can be brought together with the far-seeing, distant views of mapping technologies. Visualizations can be investigative avenues into reconstructing environments for purposes of interrogating the past to understand histories of violence, of trauma, of place-making, and of spaces that no longer exist.1 In this thesis, I use historical research and digital methods to create visualizations that might help us better understand experiences of the Kraków Ghetto. While this project is driven by overarching interest in histories and narratives of oppressed or interned populations, Kraków offers a unique path to studying spaces of confinement. Stories of the Kraków Ghetto are dominated by popular interest in the heroic actions of Oskar Schindler. Yet there remains so much more remains to be studied. The ghetto was located in a suburb of the city that existed before Poland was occupied and many of the buildings inside the imposed boundaries remain to this day. It is a space that both exists and is lost forever. It is impossible to recreate the ghetto, but testimonies from survivors can bring us closer to grasping nuances of what it was like to live within its walls. 1 Forensic Architecture is a research agency that uses architectural technique and visualizations to investigate cases of human rights violations and state violence around the world. Their methodologies and research can be found in a volume written by the group’s founder. Eyal Weizman and Forensic Architecture (Project), Forensic Architecture: Violence at the Threshold of Detectability (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2019). 1 This project does not pretend to construct a simulation of what life was like in the ghetto; that would be impossible