The Ghosts of World War II: The photographs found at flea markets superimposed on to modern street scenes
- Images depict almost transparent soldiers racing through our streets as they look today
- Fascinating series shows contrast between wartorn cities in the 1930s and 1940s and pleasant neighbourhoods now.
The remarkable pictures overlay modern scenes from France with atmospheric photographs taken in the same place during the war.
Historical expert Jo Teeuwisse, from Amsterdam, began the project after finding 300 old negatives at a flea market in her home city depicting familiar places in a very different context.
Dangerous crossing: Soldiers race up Avenue de
Paris in Cherbourg in 1944, speeding past the rubble and over modern-day
road markings
Fear and fighting: The original image from 1944, before it was laid over a photo taken from the exact same spot today
Startling contrast: Dutch historian Jo Teeuwisse
finds pictures from archives and then researches their background,
before taking a picture in the same place now and elegantly interweaving
them
Vivid reality: The past and the present collide
as touches of colour appear on this emotive shot on rue Armand Levéel in
the French city of Cherbourg
Now she has rediscovered photographs of soldiers at war in France and across Europe and put together further sets of evocative and emotional designs.
Miss Teeuwisse believes that making war scenes familiar by linking them to somewhere we recognise heightens their impact.
'I knew what happened there, but knowing the exact spot of some detail will etch it into your visual memory,' she said.
From dark times to blue skies: German prisoners of war are marched through the north-western French city by American soldiers
Marching on: Allied soldiers are seen on the
move past shops from then and now in these fascinating pictures of
France from the Left Behind series
Changing environment: German soldiers
surrendering beside the modern terraced houses of the Rue des Fossés
Plissons in Domfront, Orne
Honouring the dead: Village behind the front
lines in Normandy celebrate Bastille Day for the first time in over four
years at a memorial that still stands today
The website of her organisation, Historical Consultancy, reads: 'For years we have been researching daily life before and during the Second World war, not just gathering information but also interviewing eye witnesses and recreating certain aspects of history to gain a unique insight into that era.'
The organisation works with authors, film and TV companies, museums, schools, documentary makers, designers, theatre productions and many more.
It has helped individuals trying to find out more about their family history, carrying out close research into any events from between 1900 and 1950.
Moving moment: Servicemen rest beside signs
pointing the way to a hospital and a church, with more old-fashioned
script just visible behind
Echoes of history: The tarmacked road of Saint Marcouf, Manche, was once piled high with debris
Dramatic past: Men in uniform file out of La
Madeleine à Sainte Marie du Mont, in Manche, close to the beaches of
Normandy where the D-Day invasion took place
Horrific sight: A dead German soldier lies
sprawled in the street with smooth patches showing through where the
area has been restored today
A selection of her photos created across Europe, from Rotterdam to Utrecht to Sicily are available to view on her Flickr site and on Facebook.
The emotional photos juxtapose wartorn paths piled high with rubble with newly painted signposts and tarmacked roads.
Pretty houses and fashionable shops have been built where the dead once lay and German soldiers clashed with Allied troops.
In these poignant shots, however, we have a tiny window into that world.
Historical colour: A sign reading Todt
Organisation - a Third Reich civil and military engineering group in
Germany - is pictured over a pretty orange and pink house
New world: An American flag speaks of Allied progress in this engrossing image from the streets of France
Fascinating! Thanks for the link!
ReplyDeleteFascinating blend of the old and new from a modern perspective ghostly and phantom like in their visionary echoes . Thank the Gods of War that Stalin did not get his hands on France for if he could have he surely would have, It almost begs to wonder about Patton,s desire to keep on pushing the Soviets back from where the two forces met after Germany capitulated and the stern wall of resistance he was given when he said so and his untimely death ? Regardless the truth in these photos speaks volumes about how some people believe that when we die or when we have been dead awhile that impressions are left of moments from the past that some deceased seem to replay over and over again in spectral images much like these i wonder now that i have seen these interesting works just how much of an irreversible impression humanity may leave especially when war and death have been there and the fighting is over ?
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