Windowson a darkening continent

THE MOST extensive single photographic record of Jewish life in central and Eastern Europe before the Holocaust is now available online.

Photographer Roman Vishniac was commissioned by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to document Eastern European Jewish life between 1935 and 1938.

His photographs were to become some of the best-known images of prewar Jewish life in Europe.

Until now, only 350 of Vishniac’s photographs have been available. A new digital archive, created in a joint effort of the International Centre of Photography (ICP) and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, includes almost 10,000 of his negatives.

“Our shared goal is to make the images available for further identification and research, deepening our knowledge of Vishniac’s work and the people and places he recorded in his images,” said Mark Lubell, ICP’s executive director, in a statement.

“This project will introduce many people to one of the 20th century’s preeminent photographers,” Michael Grunberger, director of collections at the Museum, told Tablet.

Vishniac, who died in 1990, was borntoaRussian-Jewishfamily and grew up in Moscow. His family left Russia for Berlin after the revolution.

After the German invasion of France, he was arrested and sent to an internment camp. With help from the JDC and the remainder of his family’s assets, he secured his r e l e a s e a n d emigrated with his wife and two children to the US in 1940.