This week, I’m honoured to be joined by Dr Toby Haggith, Senior Curator in the Department of Second World War and Mid-20th Century Conflict at the Imperial War Museum, and someone who both specialises in film restoration and working with Holocaust imagery. Toby is one of my favourite historians and curators, and this was a thrilling and illuminating conversation where we discuss the painstaking process of restoring films, the challenges of working with atrocity imagery, especially from the Holocaust, and why the way in which both the moving and still war image are presented and perceived, is almost entirely dependent on context.
Note: Due to a discussion of atrocity imagery in this conversation, including certain graphic examples, listener discretion is advised.
About Toby
Toby has worked on the restoration The Battle of the Somme (1916), The Battle of the Ancre (1917) and Battle of Arras (1917) and was the director of the restoration and completion of German Concentration Camps Factual Survey (1945/2014), overseeing the production of the award-winning Blu-ray/DVD version. He is co-editor with Joanna Newman of Holocaust and the Moving Image: Film and Television Representations Since 1933 (2005) and has most recently co-authored Nuremberg: The Trial That Defined Justice with IWM colleague James Bulgin, which is out on 6 November 2025 (https://shop.iwm.org.uk/products/nuremberg?srsltid=AfmBOoo6HkD9-efMcsEU9dF6A_9x24EqFPCt56eRSrnnRiTDwa9guQFC).
Links to Toby’s selected images:
1. Footage from the original Battle of the Somme (1916); For the “over the top” sequence that Toby selected, watch from 03:00 onwards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsfEOXeglBI
2. [Distressing images – viewer discretion advised)
The bulldozer scene from the Berger-Belsen Concentration Camp in 1945: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205194125
The same scene from other angles:
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa7352
https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C376248
Other links
Laura Rossi’s soundtrack for the restored The Battle of the Somme performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTowuk_hnqU&list=RDbTowuk_hnqU&start_radio=1
“How the Battle of the Somme was Filmed”: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/how-the-battle-of-the-somme-was-filmed
In this episode, I’m joined by not one but two guests, authors of Negative Publicity (2015) and the soon-to-be-published Cosmopolemos: An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of the United States Department of Defence Contract Spending from 2001 to 2021. In this wide-ranging conversation, artist and photographer Edmund Clark and investigative journalist and writer Crofton Black explain their unique approach to research, combining forensic investigations of declassified documents with photography to shed light on systems of military power and hegemonic control. Their widely exhibited and rigorously researched work is immensely thought-provoking and important, offering rare insight into a fiercely protected world.
Listeners will be able to see some of these images from Cosmopolemos and more in a collaborative exhibition with the Incite Project at Photo Oxford, running between the 25th of October and the 16th of November at Pembroke College JCR Art Gallery.
Cosmopolemos [Embedded]: Representations of American Military Power from 9/11 to the Evacuation of Kabul displays images from the Incite Project made between 9/11 and the evacuation from Kabul, including those by photojournalists embedded with the US military in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Link to exhibition: https://photooxford.org/exhibitions/crofton-black-edmund-clark
Ed and Crofton will also be speaking about Cosmopolemos at a symposium on 31 October at the Truth and Photography Symposium at Weston Library in Oxford: (https://photooxford.org/events/symposium
Link to Ed and Crofton’s selected images:
https://sotonac-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/ha4g21_soton_ac_uk/EYf7hg48j2tAurna9XCj7UIBCNDg2oxuhRzVtCaYOQok0A?e=K5jkXa
**Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of graphic violence in one small section, specifically from minute 43 to minute 44, about some ISIS images, which depict scenes of extreme violence**
Imperial War Museum (IWM) Curator Helen Upcraft joins me for a conversation about her work in the museum’s film archives, including the experience of working on Peter Jackson’s First World War documentary They Shall Not Grow Old (2018); a wide-ranging discussion of key curatorial practices around visual material and the challenges of born-digital content; the increasing number of combatant photographs in the IWM’s collections; the selection and archiving of sensitive content, such as the IWM’s collection of born-digital Islamic State images; and the immense importance of the IWM’s fantastic ongoing exhibition on sexual violence in conflict, of which Helen is the lead curator.
"Unsilenced: Sexual Violence in Conflict" is on at the Imperial War Museum in London and runs to 2 November 2025: https://www.iwm.org.uk/events/unsilenced-sexual-violence-in-conflict
Link to Helen’s selected images:
https://sotonac-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/ha4g21_soton_ac_uk/EZS5RqckqahDoUoch6aCzosBdh2RCk8Lgt40ocZP_FDCWQ?e=aQIB7A
In the very first episode of The War We See, Dr. Chris Fuller, Associate Professor in Modern History at the University of Southampton, joins me for a truly historical examination of photo reconnaissance, drone imagery, and the military's increasing weaponisation of the camera, especially within the context of US military innovation, the Gulf War, and the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Links to Chris' selected images:
Image 1: Screenshot in https://www.c-span.org/program/news-conference/defense-department-news-briefing/11876
( To view the image within the screenshot, see p.17 https://www.airandspaceforces.com/app/uploads/1991/11/Nov1991.pdf)
Image 2: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Gulf_war_target_cam.jpg
Image 3: https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/jarecke-gulf-war-incinerated-iraqi-soldier.jpg
Have you ever wondered how much of our understanding of war comes from what is visually presented to us? What factors determine what we see of war? And who decides what is recorded, censored, or shared?
Introducing The War We See, a new podcast on war imagery that explores these questions and more, through fascinating conversations with an eclectic selection of guests.