The Lodz Ghetto was the first ghetto built by the Nazis in Poland. It was built in April, 1940. Henryk Ross, a Jewish-Polish photographer was employed by the Statistics Department to take identity photos and propaganda pictures there. He also produced thousands of pictures documenting daily life in the ghetto.

Among the photos taken were memorable images of Jewish police officers and residents at work, while at the same time photographing people dying of hunger, like this image of a child lying on the ground, his hand grasping a door handle before unflinching passers by. Or this picture of children role-playing as “Jews and Police Officers”… An impossible scene, nearly unbearable to witness.

As Christian Caujolle wrote in his preface to the Lodz Ghetto album: “Our absolute condemnation of Nazism makes it hard to accept this direct witness, vivid and human, of daily life threatened, their impending demise overshadowed by the will to live. It is also for this reason, to show the complexity of our past, that we must show these true to life documents.”

Henry Ross, “Photos ensevelies du Ghetto de Lodz”

Until february 13, 2011
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