Authors

Object ID

2014.1.306

Object Name

Print, Photographic

Date

9-25-1945

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Description

Front: Black and white photograph. A man is on the left side putting on his shoes. Six daughters spread out through the rest of the picture, several helping each other get dressed. One makes the bed. Back:Taped on press release, 'Berlin, Germany ...... An early morning scene in the attic quarters in the Jewish sector of Berlin where the Weber family live, eat and sleep. The father, 54-year-old Alexander Weber, is not a Jew, but he married a Jewess. The look of stark tragedy is clearly marked on his face as he dresses. His wife helped some Jewish friends from the Nazis ans was taken off to the dreaded camp at Auschwitz where she was put to death in the gas chamber on December 1, 1943. Weber lives here with his six daughter [sic] and 17-year-old son who has already departed for work. (v) 9-25-45'.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

A family attempting to adjust to the devastation of post-war Berlin. Much of the city was laid waste from allied bombing, and thus uninhabitable. We do not know if Mr. Weber had been living in attic quarters with his family throughout the war, possibly to hide his Jewish wife who was murdered in 1943 at Auschwitz, or if this became his family’s accommodations after the city of Berlin was devastated by Allied air campaigns. While the reporter is understandably focused on Mr. Weber’s “look of stark tragedy,” i.e., his impassive stare, he seems to bypass how the children have grown with the changed circumstances of their lives and do not have the “look”: one of the girls is helping her younger sister, one is making the bed, two are dressing for the day. Another of the older children appears to be wearing her mother’s apron, perhaps to attend to breakfast for the family.

Dimensions

6 1/2 x 8 1/2"

Keywords

Berlin, Germany, Auschwitz, Weber, International News

Subcollection

Post

Postwar Plight of Berlin Jewish Family

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