Łódź Ghetto photographs

Re: Memory Unearthed: The Lodz Ghetto Photographs Of Henryk Ross. An exhibition underway at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York. Ends June 24, 2018.
Re: https://mjhnyc.org/exhibitions/memory-unearthed/


I was fortunate to listen to the curator Judith Cohen talk last week about
the photographs of Jewish life under the Nazi occupation. An exhibition is underway at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York. Ends June 24, 2018. The collection will then travel to xxx, xxx

The artifacts themselves are extraordinary, however the real value is in their content. That content is not obvious to see. Without the captions, the pictures are often ordinary, maybe  little odd. 

Those images in the exhibition familiar to us today were taken for German propaganda. They were deliberately edited or altered to misinform. Some were staged. Surviving testimony details the lengths taken to compose these. The intent was, of course, to hide the abuse, or, more overtly, to dehumanize Jewish orthodox life and promote the Nazi delusion.  It's intriguing to know just how effective these
images were with both the German public and abroad.

Jews were prohibited from owning cameras and photographs taken by Jews under the occupation are far rarer. Particularly moving in this category, are the images taken by young victims trying to create a moment of normalcy, however brief. These show teenagers or parents and children enjoying the snow, the sunlight, attending to each other.

However, the current exhibit focuses neither on propaganda nor on the snapshots of private life under Nazi rule.


The bulk of the exhibition images were taken by Henryk Ross. A man who lived a double life, both as a bureaucratic photographer for the propaganda machine and as a clandestine witness of the holocaust.  Ross was one of less than a dozen photographers who chose, at risk, to document what they saw. These images cover a broad range of daily life, and it does seem as though the whole community colluded, because many these images were shot closely. The individuals are recognizable, often looking directly at the camera. Quite a contrast to the German propaganda.

In one strange image some two dozen people in hats and winter coats are burrowing away haphazardly on a large sodden earthwork. The caption explains that they are scrounging for potatoes.

Have you ever asked yourself how you would have coped under such violence? How would you have behaved trapped near death, witnessing suffering and savagery at every moment? These images might tell you something about yourself. Each image captures a story, a dilemma, and I had to wonder how I would have acted.

Mrs. Cohen briefly touched on the collaboration with the Nazis. German propaganda promoted the idea of Jewish collaboration. Much of the barbarism photographed must have been coerced. Some was clearly coerced.

I wonder what I would have done under those circumstances and it makes me ask whether I should be doing more to right wrongs today. Not a comfortable thought.