Photographer bears witness to WW II
By Maria Sandra
JAKARTA (JP): A mother clasps the hand of her emaciated, bed- ridden son, recently returned from a Russian prisoner of war camp.
Much of the photograph's tender quality is derived from the empathy of the German recorder of the image, Hilmar Pabel.
"I, too, experienced the homecoming of an almost lost child," said Pabel. "I shared the happiness of German families after the war."
The family reunion photograph is now on display with his other works at Galeri Foto Jurnalistik Antara, Pasar Baru, Central Jakarta, until Nov. 11. The collection, a documentation of the devastating war which scarred Germans and the rest of Europe for many years, is appropriately called "Immortal Witness".
Now 87 and on his sixth visit to Indonesia, Pabel said he worked for the fascist magazine Signal in the 1940s and at Stern until 1962. He freelanced from the 1970s.
At the Goethe Institute before the opening of the exhibition, he described the beginning of the end for Germany after it went to war with Russia in 1945.
"I was waiting for the soldiers to arrive," recalls Pabel, who was then in Ulm, Baden-Wrttemberg.. "And I saw how those who were weak and tired, with their dirty uniforms, dragged themselves along the railway, and finally slumped on their folding beds."
"They looked so happy, and free, because they made it..they were still alive and could be together again with their families.."
He focused on a soldier reunited with his violin, the same man pictured with his mother in the family reunion shot.
Few words of explanation are needed for images of war. A wide- eyed little girl with a white ribbon in her hair seems to search the lens for her missing mother. Her name was Marlies, and it did not take long for her to find out she was an orphan.
Pabel also brings us the post-war years in Germany, and his travels, including to Vietnam and Indonesia.
His favorite work from his career is of the young Jacqueline Kennedy meeting Soviet premier Nikita Kruschev in Vienna.
As with many artists, Pabel was entranced by Bali, which he visited in the 1950s. He also captured the masterful oratory style of Indonesia's first president, Sukarno, in
From vast photographic memories frozen in time, Pabel shares with us fleeting smiles and the poignancy of a moment. But he is undecided about their worth.
"When I look back, I often doubt whether my work has any meaning..." Pabel said.
"Can a photographer who is so used to taking pictures of hunger, poverty and human rights abuses help to actually reduce (these problems)?"
His friends, he said, used to call him a naive idealist.
"I knew that being a photographer could not change the world, but ...I will always strive toward (helping people through photography)," he said.
Pabel, born in 1910 in Rawitsch, Schlesien, acknowledges the need to rest. He says he would like to concentrate on "spiritual" matters, but remains active in social activities near his Munich home.
Would he peer through the lens again?
"If what I do can really help people in need, I would work with my camera again, as long as I have the energy, and as long as there is time," he said with a wistful smile.