Unpublished photographs of the Jewish ghetto, found in an attic 80 years later, displayed in Warsaw
ZBIGNIEW LESZEK GRZYWACZEWSKI / AFP
One of the never-before-seen photos of the Jewish ghetto found 80 years later. Here is a group of Jews – men, women and children, accompanied by German soldiers with weapons in their hands. This is part of an exhibit on display at the Museum of Jewish History in Warsaw, the capital of Poland.
HISTORY – In Poland, this Wednesday, January 18, the Museum of Jewish History exhibited unpublished photographs of the Warsaw Ghetto. ” These are the only known photos of the ghetto that were not taken by the Germans and were not produced for propaganda purposes. Zuzanna Shnepf-Kolach, one of the curators of the exhibition, notes.
This film of 33 photographs was stored in the attic for 80 years. They were all taken by Polish fireman Zbigniew Grzywaczewski, who was called to put out fires started by the Nazis after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising broke out on April 19, 1943.
Another point of view
For Holocaust historian Jacek Leociak, “ this film is an invaluable document because it goes beyond this German perspective, (…) this perspective of executioners photographing Jews as dehumanized, anonymous victims. “.
These photos do not show a battle scene. In one of them we see a group of Jews – men, women and children – escorted by German soldiers with guns in their hands to the Umschlagplatz, the extermination camps. On the other hand, firefighters put out the burning buildings.
ZBIGNIEW LESZEK GRZYWACZEWSKI / AFP
One of the never-before-seen photos of the Jewish ghetto found 80 years later. Firefighters extinguished the burning buildings here. It is part of an exhibit at the Museum of Jewish History in Warsaw, Poland.
The Warsaw ghetto was created by the Germans in 1939, a year after the invasion of Poland. Their goal was to exterminate the inhabitants through starvation and disease, or to deport them to the Treblinka death camp, located 80 kilometers east of Warsaw.
Photos found 6 months ago
Only 12 photographs from this roll are known so far, but only as prints on poor quality paper, tightly framed. The film itself remained unwatchable for a long time.
Fingerprints were transferred by the author to a Jewish family who hid in their apartment during the war and later immigrated to the United States. In the 1990s, he donated them to the Holocaust Memorial in Washington.
Since they already knew the photos, the exhibition organizers wanted to find out if there were any other photos and contacted the family of the firefighter. It was Zbigniew Grzywaczewski’s son Marcej who found the remaining photographs in a forgotten box. ” My father never told us that he took pictures in the ghetto, perhaps because it was too difficult “, he says.
After a long search, Marcey Grzywaczewski found the film in the last box of the last of the boxes containing his photo archives. [son] father The film also includes photos of his mother and family. You can say that all these films are called “war and love”.he concludes.
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