“From Where They Stood, also known as À pas aveugles, is a 2021 Holocaust documentary by French documentarian Christophe Cognet that scrutinizes photographs taken clandestinely by prisoners at the Dachau, Auschwitz, Mittlelbau-Dora and Buchenwald Nazi concentration camps during World War II. The photographs were smuggled out of the camps and developed during the war or afterwards.
Unlike other Holocaust documentaries, which rely on survivor testimonials, Cognet chose to take an investigative approach. He scrutinized closely each of the photographs to determine precisely where they were taken. The film begins by showing photographs taken secretly by a prisoner at Dachau who worked as a nurse at the prisoner infirmary. These show the barracks and portraits of prisoners, sometimes posing casually.
The photographs differ from pictures of the camps taken during the war by German photographers for propaganda purposes, and photos taken just after liberation by Allied forces. These were photos taken by prisoners of prisoners, at great personal risk. The photographers included prisoners Rudolf Cisar at Dachau, Georges Angeli at Buchenwald, and Alberto Errera at Auschwitz. Some of the photographers and subjects were members of resistance movements at the camps.
Some of the pictures show women prisoners who had been subjected to medical experiments, and the photographs shown the injuries caused to their legs by Nazi “doctors”. In one procedure, gangrene was injected into an open wound.” Without a doubt, one of the darkest productions of the holocaust ever created.
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