Gruis van het bombardement in de Stationstraat te Rotterdam c. 1940 - 1945

Curator: Look at this photograph, taken sometime between 1940 and 1945 by J. Nolte. It's titled "Debris from the Bombing in Stationstraat, Rotterdam." Editor: What strikes me immediately is the eerie quiet. A devastation rendered in grayscale. So much grey—the rubble, the sky—punctuated only by a solitary figure in a white coat. A spectral presence amidst the ruins. Curator: Precisely. And look at the materials—or what's *left* of them. The pulverized brick, the shattered wood. Think about the labor, the craftsmanship, now reduced to this brutal aftermath of conflict. What was created through immense effort, then taken apart through destruction, the kind of war profiteering that results from such acts. Editor: It is true; there is so much labor, then its violent undoing... You feel the ghost of it clinging to the buildings still standing. I’m imagining what Stationstraat must have been like *before* – bustling, vibrant... now silenced. Almost… spectral, with those neat lines of trees trying to make the most of the nothingness, marching off in the distance with what looks like a small bomb cloud at the center. Curator: Those tram tracks running right through the center of the frame also feel quite stark and lonely—a relic of a transport system struggling to function amid such devastation. In terms of photographic production, one must also assume it was probably a struggle to even locate the right materials, paper, or the equipment needed to develop this piece; not so long ago Rotterdam had plenty. And in terms of Nolte’s decision-making process, it must’ve been risky too. There are more people around there, perhaps tasked with removing debris. They appear as ghosts already, at least Nolte was bold in rendering them. Editor: Yes! Like ghosts caught in the frame's melancholic web. He has rendered absence physical somehow. You almost feel the echo of the bombs—of shattering glass— even now. In a very material way, the act of looking allows me to access the violence—the real damage that this conflict imposed on real, historical humans. The scale, the textures... it’s a testament to what can remain despite unimaginable brutality. Curator: Such stark images leave marks. Now, the challenge lies in *our* handling—in grappling with Nolte’s photographic witness and rendering them intelligible to a modern ear, generations removed from Stationstraat, a ruin of such violence. It's quite affecting to reflect on, once more, what labor—artistic or otherwise—remains to create hope where seemingly no human kindness may survive. Editor: Absolutely. It certainly changes how I'll think of even seemingly ordinary streets; this will remind me, and anyone who bears witness with it, of everything, even beauty, we can quickly lose.