Here's another picture, taken two days later - one which I find extraordinarily moving. It's a casual family snapshot - out of true, flare on the lens.
The gentleman on the left is an Army reservist, just about to leave. You can tell at a glance he is not exactly the military type, but he's trying. He will probably be dead within weeks and knows it. Look at his astonishingly beautiful son, to whom it's all a great adventure - and then at that poor woman, wife and mother, who knows she should smile at the camera, but can't. She knows exactly what is coming. The scan does not begin to show the helpless despair on her face.
They are insignificant, respectable people. Anywhere else in Europe and one would not hesitate to call them bourgeois. They are ordinary people everywhere.
Perhaps it's worthwhile remembering that the crowd in Khaldei's photograph are listening to Molotov because Stalin was too scared to come to the microphone. So much for Great Men.
Ian
