A slightly controversial exhibit of photographs by Henryk Ross in Prague's Langhans gallery presents works whose importance lies both in their visual impact and artistic quality but above all in their content, becoming an important historic testimony which brings new and often surprising images of the holocaust and life in the Nazi ghettoes during World War II. The intriguing story of the circumstances under which the photographs were taken and ”survived“ to be eventually exhibited is no less compelling than the pictures themselves.
The black-and-white photos depict life in Poland's Łódź ghetto, where Henryk Ross, a Polish photographer of Jewish descent born in 1910 in Warsaw, was sent along with tens of thousands of other Jews, among them also Czechs. His life in the ghetto was a little unusual, however; looking at the exhibited photographs, which are full of contradictions, one might get the impression that he lived a double life in the ghetto. Officially, as an employee of the Judenrat (the Jewish council which ran the ghetto under Nazi supervision and which was headed by infamous the Chaim Rumkowski) he was in charge of taking photographs of the ghetto inhabitants, documenting products made in the ghetto and producing propaganda photos required by the Germans. On the side, in fact secretly, he took photos of the ”real“ life in the ghetto.
In 1987, four years before his death, Ross described: ”As I officially owned a camera, I could photograph the life of Jews in the ghetto. Shortly before the ghetto's liquidation in 1944, I buried the negatives so that there would be a record of our tragedy, especially about the total extermination of the Łódź Jews by the Nazi executioners. I wanted to leave behind a historical document about our suffering.“ After the war Ross, one of the few survivors, returned to the same place and unearthed the 6000 negatives. For a long time, however, he was reluctant to make them public. Considering the dramatic circumstances under which they were taken and preserved this may seem paradoxical, but the reasons become quite obvious when we look at some of the pictures.(full article is available after purchasing a subscription - not available now)
The black-and-white photos depict life in Poland's Łódź ghetto, where Henryk Ross, a Polish photographer of Jewish descent born in 1910 in Warsaw, was sent along with tens of thousands of other Jews, among them also Czechs. His life in the ghetto was a little unusual, however; looking at the exhibited photographs, which are full of contradictions, one might get the impression that he lived a double life in the ghetto. Officially, as an employee of the Judenrat (the Jewish council which ran the ghetto under Nazi supervision and which was headed by infamous the Chaim Rumkowski) he was in charge of taking photographs of the ghetto inhabitants, documenting products made in the ghetto and producing propaganda photos required by the Germans. On the side, in fact secretly, he took photos of the ”real“ life in the ghetto.
In 1987, four years before his death, Ross described: ”As I officially owned a camera, I could photograph the life of Jews in the ghetto. Shortly before the ghetto's liquidation in 1944, I buried the negatives so that there would be a record of our tragedy, especially about the total extermination of the Łódź Jews by the Nazi executioners. I wanted to leave behind a historical document about our suffering.“ After the war Ross, one of the few survivors, returned to the same place and unearthed the 6000 negatives. For a long time, however, he was reluctant to make them public. Considering the dramatic circumstances under which they were taken and preserved this may seem paradoxical, but the reasons become quite obvious when we look at some of the pictures.(full article is available after purchasing a subscription - not available now)