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Of particular note among the vast quantity of
documentation pertaining to the Warsaw Ghetto found in various
archives and libraries, is the tremendous number of photographs.
There are photos portraying almost every aspect of life and death
there. These photos fall into several categories: from amateur
pictures, through photos taken by journalists and professional
propagandists, to three-dimensional and color photos. Generally
speaking there are two types of photos that were taken in the
ghetto, and these can be further divided into sub-categories: photos
that were taken by the Germans, and those that were photographed by
others. The ghetto residents were very restricted in terms of their
opportunities for photography. There were very few cameras, and if
they were available it was difficult both to acquire film and to
develop the pictures. For this reason, almost all of the photos we
have from non-German sources were taken by photographers who came
from outside the ghetto. The German photographers, on the other
hand, had all the necessary technical means at their disposal,
whether they were official photographers or amateurs. That is why
most of the photographic documentation we have concerning the Warsaw
Ghetto comes from German sources. That does not mean that as a
result of this the photographic coverage is somehow lacking, because
the German photographers chose to immortalize a variety of scenes
from the ghetto, not only those that served their propaganda image.
We have chosen to present here four important collections of photos
of the Warsaw Ghetto from the Yad Vashem archives. These collections
cover four completely different perspectives of the ghetto, and they
are a sampling of the various spheres that were documented on film
in the ghetto, as well as the different photographers who worked
there. |