WITNESS editorial policy

Revision of 4 October 2026 · witness.photo

WITNESS (witness.photo) publishes archival photographs and the documented stories behind them for educational purposes, condemns Nazism and crimes against humanity, and does not permit propaganda or justification of their ideology. This policy sets out what the project publishes and how, and applies to both the Russian and the English versions of the site. In case of discrepancy, the Russian text prevails.

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1.1. WITNESS is a personal, non-commercial documentary archive of historical photography. The project is not a mass medium, is not registered as an online publication, carries no advertising and engages in no political activity.

1.2. The subject of the project is the history of individual photographs: who took them, when and where; what they show; which archive the file comes from; what is known about the people in the frame; and how the picture was used afterwards. The text of a publication is always secondary to the document and serves to explain it.

1.3. The project's publications are educational and historical in character. They are addressed to adult readers interested in the history of the 19th to 21st centuries, to researchers, teachers and journalists.

1.4. This policy is a public document. The project follows it when selecting, preparing and removing material; it may be relied upon in any communication with the project.

2.1. The purpose of every publication is to preserve and explain a historical record: to establish the provenance of the photograph, to separate confirmed facts from legend, and to show what happened before and after the frame.

2.2. The project publishes photographs as documents, not as illustrations of an opinion. The picture, its archival caption, inscriptions on the reverse and accompanying documents are reproduced as they survive, with the source and its status stated.

2.3. The documentary principle means:

• every frame carries a source card: the author (or a note that the author is not established), date, place, archive and reference number, rights status;
• unconfirmed information is explicitly called unconfirmed; retelling a legend is not confirming it;
• the project does not invent names, dates, motives or circumstances absent from the available sources;
• discrepancies between sources are shown, not smoothed over.

2.4. The inclusion of material about crimes, wars, disasters and repression is dictated solely by the task of preserving memory and countering the distortion of history. The project proceeds from the view that knowledge of a crime is the condition of its never being accepted as the norm.

3.1. WITNESS condemns Nazism, fascism, racism, antisemitism and crimes against peace and humanity, including the crimes established by the judgment of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg of 1 October 1946, and the Holocaust as part of them. The project accepts the facts established by that judgment as established and does not call them into question.

3.2. The project recognises the decisive role of the Soviet people in the defeat of Nazi Germany and the humanitarian mission of the USSR in the liberation of the countries of Europe. Material on the Second World War does not equate the aims, decisions and actions of the leadership, command and servicemen of the USSR with those of Nazi Germany and its allies.

3.3. The display of Nazi symbols, uniforms, documents, propaganda and statements of officials of the Nazi regime on the project's pages is the display of historical evidence. It forms a negative attitude towards the ideology of Nazism and contains no element of propaganda or justification of it. Such display is carried out in the manner permitted by the second paragraph of Article 6 of Federal Law No. 80-FZ of 19 May 1995 "On Perpetuating the Victory of the Soviet People in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" and by the Note to Article 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation.

3.4. Nothing in the project's publications constitutes approval, glorification or aestheticisation of persons involved in the crimes of the Nazi regime. Biographical information about such persons is published as context for the document and is always accompanied by a statement of their role in the crimes and of the responsibility they bore, where it was imposed.

3.5. Every publication containing Nazi symbols or relating to the subject of Nazism carries the following notice:

These archival materials are published as historical evidence for educational purposes. WITNESS condemns Nazism and the crimes of the Nazi regime, including those established by the judgment of the Nuremberg Tribunal. The display of symbols, images and quotations does not imply support or justification.

3.6. The same notice appears above the archive listing for the theme "Nazism and the Holocaust", in image descriptions (alt text) and in page metadata, in both language versions of the site.

4.1. Symbols (the swastika, SS runes, the Nazi salute, insignia, flags) are shown only as part of an archival photograph or document and only together with accompanying text that explains its origin and context. The project does not publish symbols separately from the document and does not use them in design, navigation, headings or previews.

4.2. Previews, thumbnails in the archive grid and social-media images (og:image) use frames without symbols or cropped and blurred versions. The site's cover image contains no symbols and no portraits of officials of the Nazi regime.

4.3. Propaganda documents of the Nazi regime (leaflets, reports, speeches, posters) are published as evidence. Their text is not transcribed, translated or placed in headings, except for individual phrases needed to understand the document; such phrases are accompanied by a note on their unreliability and on the purpose of the document. The file card of such a document carries the label: "Propaganda document of the Nazi regime. Reproduced as evidence; its content is not reliable testimony and is not shared by the project."

4.4. The project does not quote or reproduce works included in the Federal List of Extremist Materials (Article 13 of Federal Law No. 114-FZ of 25 July 2002), including the writings of the leaders of the NSDAP and of the Fascist Party of Italy. Biographical information drawn from such works is given in paraphrase with reference to scholarly research, without quotation.

4.5. When referring to organisations whose activity is banned in the Russian Federation by court decision, the project indicates the ban (Article 13.15(2) of the Code of Administrative Offences). Organisations declared criminal by the judgment of the International Military Tribunal (the SS, the SD, the Gestapo, the leadership corps of the NSDAP) are named with an indication of that status at first mention in a publication.

4.6. The project does not publish contemporary symbols styled after Nazi ones, images of contemporary neo-Nazi events, or material created to glorify Nazism, whatever the accompanying text.

5.1. The documentary original is the archival scan or reproduction obtained from the named source. It is published first in a series and kept unaltered (the file is not re-encoded); the preview is generated separately and does not replace the original.

5.2. Any processing of an image is labelled on the file card. Three kinds are distinguished:

• documentary adjustment without AI (tonal correction, dust removal, light sharpening): composition and size preserved, no new detail drawn in;
• colourisation: colours are reconstructed and not documented; the author and method are stated;
• synthetic reconstruction using generative AI: the version may contain altered or invented detail; it cannot be used to establish historical particulars.

5.3. Versions produced with generative AI are permitted only as a supplement to the original, never in its place, and are not applied to images of the dead, of victims of crimes, of executions or of camps (section 6). Synthetic versions of portraits of officials of the Nazi regime are neither produced nor published: such processing adds no documentary value and creates a risk of aestheticisation.

5.4. Cropping applied by the project is stated on the card. Where the widely known version of a picture is a fragment, the project shows the full frame wherever possible and explains what lies outside the familiar crop.

5.5. Images sent in by readers are published only after comparison with the source's archival record; where the digital history of a submitted file is not established, this is stated explicitly.

6.1. Photographs of the dead, of executions, of bodies and of camps are published only where they are historical evidence that cannot be replaced by description, and only with respect for the memory of those depicted. Such publications are not used in previews, covers or for promotional purposes.

6.2. The people depicted are named wherever possible; where the name is not established, this is stated. The project does not attribute to the dead motives, words or actions unsupported by sources, and does not interpret facial expression, posture or the circumstances of death beyond what the documents report.

6.3. Publications showing fallen or executed servicemen of the USSR and of the Russian Empire, as well as civilians who died in defence of the Fatherland, open with the sentence: "This photograph is published as evidence of a death and with respect for the memory of the deceased; the circumstances of death are given by archival record, without speculation." Derogatory terms from enemy captions are reproduced only in translation and with an explicit note on their character.

6.4. The project permits no mockery, irony or value judgment towards the dead, towards the memorial dates and days of military glory of Russia, towards symbols of military glory or towards veterans. Errors of command, losses and defeats are described by the sources, without generalisations about the "guilt" of a people or an army.

6.5. Images of child victims are published only from museum and archival collections that have themselves made them public, with a reference to that collection.

7.1. Every statement of date, place, author, number of victims or circumstance rests on a named source: an archival record, a museum publication, a historian's study, a protocol or a court document. Sources are listed at the end of each publication with links.

7.2. Three levels of information are distinguished: established (confirmed by a primary document), attributed (given on a named secondary source) and unconfirmed (circulating in publications but not traceable to a document). Unconfirmed information is marked "unconfirmed", "not established" or "according to one version".

7.3. Casualty figures follow the estimates of the relevant museums and commissions of historians; inflated or deflated figures circulating in popular writing are not reproduced without a statement of their origin and of their divergence from scholarly estimates.

7.4. The project does not publish information it knows to be false and does not lend a doubtful source the appearance of reliability. Where the authenticity of a file or caption is not established, publication is postponed or carries an explicit caveat.

7.5. Corrections. A report of an error in a caption, date, authorship or attribution is reviewed within a reasonable time; a confirmed error is corrected and a dated note of the correction is placed on the card. Material corrections (attribution, number of victims, identity of a person depicted) are reflected in the text of the publication, not only on the card.

The project does not publish, in any form and whatever the accompanying text:

• denial or approval of the crimes established by the judgment of the International Military Tribunal, or denial of the Holocaust;
• equation of the USSR with Nazi Germany, or of their leadership, command and servicemen during the Second World War, or denial of the decisive role of the Soviet people in the defeat of Nazism (Article 6.1 of Federal Law No. 80-FZ);
• material expressing disrespect for the days of military glory and memorial dates of Russia, desecrating symbols of military glory, or insulting the memory of the defenders of the Fatherland and of veterans;
• symbols outside a document and its context, contemporary neo-Nazi paraphernalia, material created to glorify Nazism, and works from the Federal List of Extremist Materials;
• glorification of persons who collaborated with the Nazi regime, or of organisations declared extremist or banned in the Russian Federation;
• incitement of hatred on grounds of nationality, race, religion or membership of a social group, including through the uncritical reproduction of racist or antisemitic texts;
• satire, memes, montage and any entertainment format based on images of crimes, executions or victims.

A publication found to show signs of any of these points is taken down pending revision.

9.1. The project's materials are intended for persons aged 18 and over. The "18+" mark appears in the header of every page and in the site metadata in accordance with Federal Law No. 436-FZ of 29 December 2010 "On the Protection of Children from Information Harmful to Their Health and Development".

9.2. The project does not address its materials to minors, does not distribute them in educational institutions without a teacher's request, and does not run mailings.

9.3. Images showing bodies of the dead, executions or serious injury are not placed on the home page and are not used as social-media previews.

10.1. For every file the rights status is stated as declared by its source: public domain, work of the United States federal government, Creative Commons licence, no known restrictions, or protected work. A status declared by a source is not presented as a licence granted by the project.

10.2. Protected photographs are used for informational, scholarly and critical purposes to the extent justified by the purpose of the publication, with attribution of author and source (Article 1274 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). The project seeks to replace such files with licensed copies; donations are collected for that purpose.

10.3. A rights holder who considers that a use exceeds what is permitted may contact the project (section 11); a substantiated claim is met by removal or replacement of the file.

10.4. The project's texts may be freely quoted with attribution. Terms of use for images are determined by the status stated on each file's card.

11.1. Enquiries are accepted at andrey@zubrilov.com. Please state the publication number (W-...), the specific frame and the substance of the comment.

11.2. Time limits: acknowledgement of receipt within 3 working days; a substantive reply on a factual error within 14 days; enquiries from rights holders, relatives of persons depicted and public authorities are handled as a priority.

11.3. While a substantiated complaint under sections 3, 4, 6 or 8 is being reviewed, the disputed frame is withdrawn from public access.

11.4. Relatives of the people depicted may supply a name, clarify circumstances or ask for display to be restricted; such requests are granted where they do not conflict with the documentary purpose of the project.

11.5. All amendments to this policy are published with the date of the revision; previous revisions are retained.