Object ID
2014.1.306
Object Name
Print, Photographic
Date
9-25-1945
Files
Download Full Text (2.1 MB)
Content Warning
The Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection consists of images, documents, and artifacts related to the Holocaust. The collection contains materials that depict a number of topics that may be difficult for viewers to engage with, including: antisemitic descriptions, caricatures, and representation of Jewish people; Nazi imagery and ideology; descriptions and images of German ghettos; graphic images of the violence of the Holocaust; and the creation of the State of Israel. For more information, see our policy page.
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
Recommended Citation
"Postwar Plight of Berlin Jewish Family" (1945). Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection. 2014.1.306.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/564
Rights Statement
