The Holocaust 1935

Carl Hoeckner created this print titled 'The Holocaust.' in 1939. A multitude of shrouded figures fade into the background, while in the foreground, workers seem to operate machinery. There's a palpable tension between the mechanical and the human elements. Looking at the sea of faces, the figures are depersonalized into an anonymous mass, echoing images of the Last Judgement, or Dante's Inferno, where souls are condemned en masse, stripped of identity. In contrast, the active workers in the foreground evoke imagery of labor, the idea of man as a 'tool-making animal'. The psychological weight lies in this contrast: the individuals driving the machinery and the masses dehumanized by it. This division is what grants the image a powerful resonance, a somber reflection of the dark events that were unfolding at that time. The cyclical return of these themes in art serves as a chilling reminder of the potential for history to repeat itself.