Atrocity imagery, historical film restoration, and using film evidence in war crimes tribunals…with Dr Toby Haggith

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The War We See

Hirah Azhar

5 episodes

1 week ago

Hosted by historian Hirah Azhar, this podcast explores the fascinating story of war imagery, and how it has shaped public perceptions of conflict. Drawing on conversations with a wide range of guests - including researchers, curators/archivists, photojournalists, artists, and filmmakers - this podcast moves across time and media, unearthing the stories behind the images that have defined our understanding of war. The War We See offers a critical, urgent, and thought-provoking lens on the images that continue to shape scholarship and society. New episodes released every other Wednesday.

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Atrocity imagery, historical film restoration, and using film evidence in war crimes tribunals…with Dr Toby Haggith

The War We See

1 hour 11 minutes 56 seconds

1 week ago

Atrocity imagery, historical film restoration, and using film evidence in war crimes tribunals…with Dr Toby Haggith

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