CAPTURING HISTORY

‘Lodz Ghetto’ photos testify to Nazis’ brutal reign

At the start of World War II, the Jewish ghetto of Lodz, Poland, had a population of 160,000. By the end of the war, it was 877. One of the few survivors was Henryk Ross, a former photojournalist who was utilized by the Nazi regime as a bureaucratic photographer, taking photos for Jewish identification card and propaganda purposes. Ross soon realized he could also serve a more important cause, namely keeping a historical record showing the daily life of the ghetto's inhabitants.

Despite the danger, he would roam the streets, his small Leica half-hidden in his coat, with his wife often acting as his lookout for the authorities. He photographed all sorts of subjects, from family dinners and wedding celebrations in the early years progressing to people collapsing in the street from starvation and ultimately the deportations of men, women and children to the death camps.

In 1944, unsure of what his own fate might be, he buried all of his negatives in glass jars in the ground. After the ghetto was liberated, he dug them up, discovering that half of his collection had deteriorated. But what was left was a stunning archive of one man's resistance, a poignant picture of people trying to survive under oppression. In these turbulent times, with hate crimes on the rise, this moving exhibit is a stark reminder of where demagoguery can lead us.

PHOTOS BY HENRYK ROSS Henryk Ross documented the conditions at Poland’s Lodz Ghetto during World War II, above, left and below. He buried the negatives in 1944, and after the camp was liberated, he excavated them, top right.