Jews have lived for centuries in most every country of Europe, with the largest concentration in the Eastern European countries. They spoke Yiddish, along with the language of their native country. They lived in shtetls and villages and maintained their family and religious traditions within the dominant culture, but some would avail themselves of economic or educational opportunities in larger cities. In doing so they might still feel the pull of their traditional ways of life, especially in Western European countries such as France, Germany and the Netherlands. Jews were found in the trades, but they were also farmers and factory workers. Others went into professions such as law, medicine, and teaching. Some were wealthy, but many more lived in grinding poverty. And there were Jews who excelled in the arts and music. Jewish tradition has always stressed the importance of social welfare and love of neighbor. And through it all there was a respect for open debate, communicative competence, and a plurality of opinion, witnessed not only in the Talmud and Midrash but as well in the myriad political and religious viewpoints and parties that were so much a part of the Jewish intellectual and political landscape. “Two Jews, three arguments” is not merely a joke.
Reflecting on the centrality of the family as a critical entry point into the study of the Holocaust, Wendy Lower (The Ravine) relates the achingly sad comment that for Jews consigned to ghettos, or deported to concentration camps, “the object most often packed…besides jewelry and currency, was the family photograph.” For Jewish families these photographs were not merely means to memorialize an important event, but as well affirmations of pride in a rich cultural heritage: traditions, beliefs, values, and ways of life forged and annealed in the crucible of the family and transmitted through the generations. They were a testament to Jewish emancipation and integration into civil society as full citizens entitled to equality and civil rights under the law.
The popular pre-World War II sepia-toned photographs of Jewish families often exhibit them dressed fashionably for the era, with an air of restraint and sobriety, but with a palpable pride. Many of these portrait photographs were arranged in studios, and for the family getting their portrait taken it would be an important event. Eventually the staid cabinet photographs would give way to the more adventurous and creative shots hand-held cameras permitted. At times itinerant photographers would bring the studio to the client: if one looks closely, one can see underneath the tapestry photographic backdrop the earthen floor of the shtetl where the photograph was taken.
For the Nazis, however, the individual photographs may appear superficially different, but they knew that Jews were fundamentally all the same, and there would be only one portrait of the Jew that meshed with Nazi racial theory: the Jew as pathogen, insidiously destroying the culture and political systems of the countries in which they lived. Racial purity and the concomitant superiority of the aryan race required that Jews, and every aspect of Jewish life and history, would have to be extirpated root and branch, so that the very possibility of reproduction itself would be obviated.
--Michael D. Bulmash, K1966
Browse the Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection.
-
French Gentleman
2014.1.426
Man with mustache standing by chair, smeared hand stamp in lower right corner. Back: Addressed to 'Monsieur M. Weinberg'
-
German Opera Singer Frida Weber Signed Postcard
2019.2.222
Postcard with black and white image of a woman, “Frida Weber ‘Mignon’” printed in white in upper left corner, signature in bottom right corner.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
Frida Weber was a noted Jewish opera singer in Germany. She had been married to the popular Berlin singer Alexander Flessburg. Ms. Weber-Flessburg had recorded operas, songs, and operatic melodies, some with her husband. In this postcard she is pictured in the opera Mignon. After Hitler came to power in 1933, Frida Weber-Flessburg as a Jewish musician was banned from singing. Indeed, her name had appeared in the infamous Lexikon der Juden in der Musik. Subsequently her marriage failed, and after 1939, with the outbreak of WWII, she would be working in the armaments industry for the German army. Along with several other residents of her Berlin apartment building, she was ultimately picked up by the Gestapo in January 1943 and after a brief internment in a Berlin transit camp, Frida was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau where she was murdered.
-
Cracow, Poland Hashomir Hatzair: Two Young Men in White Shirts
2014.1.395
Young man wearing tie sitting in chair, other man standing with arm resting on the chair. Table with flower in background. Back: 'Post card. Carte Postale.' No handwriting.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Cracow, Poland. "Hashomer Hatzair" Youth
-
Cracow, Poland Hashomer Hatzair: Five Seated Young Men
2014.1.397
Five seated young men, three in front row, two in back. Back: Blank lines for address and box for stamp.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:Cracow, Poland. "Hashomer Hatzair" Youth Ca. 1920s
-
Turkish Family From Constantinople
2014.1.420
Front: Woman seated at left, man at right; three women and on man behind them
-
Polish Hashomer Hatzair From Cracow, Poland: Young Men Holding Book and Hat
2014.1.396
Young man sitting, holding his hat, Young man stands next to him, holding a book. Back: Postcard form with five handwritten lines in purple pencil.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:Cracow, Poland. "Hashomer Hatzair" Youth Ca. 1920s
-
German Family Glogowski Storefront
2014.1.402
Man and woman in white coats in doorway of store. Produce and Prices in the window. Back: Blank lines, 'Weinachser 1926.' handwritten in purple ink.
-
Warsaw, Poland Group Photograph
2014.1.413
Front: Group photo. Appears to be a compilation of several different photos. Verso: Handwriting in blue and black; '1928'.
-
Young Latvian Men
2014.1.417
Front: Two young men in white shirts with glasses. Back: Slanted handwriting; dated 5/28/28.
-
Polish Youth Sports Club - Pyatnashka
2014.1.400
Front: Eleven men posing with elbows out, ball in foreground; handwritten word at bottom. Back: Handwriting in black ink; four different blocks; one appears to be list of names of people in photo
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:Polish Youth Sports Club "Pyatnashka", 1932
-
Romanian Wedding Couple
2014.1.425
Front: Wedding photo of romanian couple; She is seated, he is standing beside her. Back: 'From Josif Schvartz' handwritten on right; message handwritten at a slant in black ink on left
-
German Jewish Women Out For a Stroll
2014.1.401
Three women, the eldest dressed in black in the middle, the two younger ones dressed in white on either side. Back: Blank lines, 'Photo K. Hubl; Karlsbad 1934' and '7587' stamp.
-
Photo Collage of Ukrainian Hahalutz Hatzioni Kibbutz ‘Achva’ in Radzymin, Poland
2014.1.406
Top left corner: Head Shot of woman in circle; bottom left corner: photo of woman, wearing dress and pearls; Center: Group of students holding a sign; Top right: Woman wearing a scarf, looking towards; Bottom right corner: woman in a sweater.
-
Large Group Gathering in Cracow, Poland
2014.1.415
Front: Large group of people surrounding a white clothed table. Verso: Handwriting in varying ink and pencil; '91 13' handstamp along left side.
-
One Room Apartment-Workshop, Warsaw
2015.2.24
Front: Black and white photograph of a man doing metal work on a log with a child standing behind him, looking at the camera. There are two beds behind them, and a mirror. Back: Four white stickers with various messages.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
Photograph from Roman Vishniac's The Vanished World. Vishniac photographed the shtetl Jews of Eastern Europe, from 1933 to 1940, just before the Holocaust was to destroy their communities, stating that "The life of the Jews even before the Holocaust was hard and bitter... With photography I could save at least a memory of Jewish life and culture, and the faces of the people. I thought that years and years after the killing, future generations of Jews would be interested to hear of the life that disappeared, the life that is no more." One Room Apartment-Workshop, Warsaw, 1936. "The basement was divided by wood boards into twenty-six living quarters. This apartment was the most expensive because a little light came from above. But when the pedestrians walked on the pavement grating even this room became dark. This man was working the whole day. The work made it impossible to breathe because metal dust was everywhere.“ Roman Vishniac, 1977.
-
Kibbutz Hachschara in Kalisz, Poland
2014.1.409
Young men and women pose with farming equipment in hand.
-
Heder, Slonim, Russia
2015.2.25
Front: Black and white photograph of a man in a hat with a long white beard standing at the front of a classroom of boys in caps, sitting at long wooden desks with books open.Back: Three white stickers with various messages.
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
Photograph from Roman Vishniac's The Vanished World. Vishniac photographed the shtetl Jews of Eastern Europe, from 1933 to 1940, just before the Holocaust was to destroy their communities, stating that "The life of the Jews even before the Holocaust was hard and bitter... With photography I could save at least a memory of Jewish life and culture, and the faces of the people. I thought that years and years after the killing, future generations of Jews would be interested to hear of the life that disappeared, the life that is no more." Heder, Slonim, Russia, 1938. “In Slonim, the teacher used the only tool that works: friendship and love. And he was very successful in this.” Roman Vishniac, 1977.
-
Entrance to the Ghetto, Cracow, 1938.
2021.1.117a
Backside of man walking on the street
Text by Roman Vishniac in The Vanished World: A limited-edition portfolio published by Witkin-Berley Ltd.
The ghetto was built by Casimir the Great. He considered the Jews an unclean people and wanted them separated from the rest of the city. The ghetto was built more than six hundred years ago and it still existed when I came to record the life of the Jews. Cracow was a large and important community and the ghetto was still intact from olden times. The Jews who lived in the ancient ghetto were so interested in life, in the life around them and in nature. It is touching to see the little peace dove, the white bird in the cage which was a symbol of the ghetto. But the later ghettos, the ghettos of Hitler, were factories of death. Of the 60,000 original Jews only a handful survived in the Cracow ghetto.
Image Courtesy of Mara Vishniac Kohn, The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, University of California, Berkeley.
-
One of the People of the Book, Warsaw, 1938.
2021.1.117b
Elderly bearded man in the street carrying a stack of books in his arm.
Text by Roman Vishniac in The Vanished World: A limited-edition portfolio published by Witkin-Berley Ltd.
The Jewish people received the holy Book. They carried books with them when they walked in the streets. They learned, they studied, they discussed. Books became the spiritual food of the Jews. Boys of thirteen could read and write while ninety percent of the non-Jews were illiterate.
Image Courtesy of Mara Vishniac Kohn, The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, University of California, Berkeley.
-
The Face of Wisdom, Cracow, 1938.
2021.1.117c
Elderly bearded man wearing a hat walks on the street in the snow. Another man passes beside him.
Text by Roman Vishniac in The Vanished World: A limited-edition portfolio published by Witkin-Berley Ltd.
This man was known, not only by his knowledge of the Talmud but in human affairs as well. And his neighbors came to him not only in religious matters but also in problems of daily life.
Image Courtesy of Mara Vishniac Kohn, The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, University of California, Berkeley.
-
Peddlers Transformed into Beggers by the Boycott, 1938.
2021.1.117d
Two elderly men sit against the side of a building.
Text by Roman Vishniac in The Vanished World: A limited-edition portfolio published by Witkin-Berley Ltd.
As peddlers they could sell a few things, second-hand goods from which they could make a meagre living. But not any more, for the boycott killed all the possibilities of making their income by selling. So they were sitting and waiting and hoping. And I was waiting with them. I wanted to photograph a kind of soul giving something to the beggars. I was waiting the whole day, but the beggars did not get a little coin and I did not get my picture.
Image Courtesy of Mara Vishniac Kohn, The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, University of California, Berkeley.
-
Grandfather and Granddaughter, Lublin, 1937.
2021.1.117e
A young woman in a black coat speaking with an elderly man wearing a hat.
Text by Roman Vishniac in The Vanished World: A limited-edition portfolio published by Witkin-Berley Ltd.
The grandfather was a wise man with long experience in suffering, but he could not give any advice, any help, to his granddaughter. She was strong and young and able to do work. But the boycott destroyed all possibilities. Because she was Jewish her knowledge of typing in Polish would not help.
Image Courtesy of Mara Vishniac Kohn, The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, University of California, Berkeley.
-
At the Open Fire, Carpathian Ruthenia, 1938.
2021.1.117f
An elderly bearded man looking into the camera lens with his left hand covering part of his face.
Text by Roman Vishniac in The Vanished World: A limited-edition portfolio published by Witkin-Berley Ltd.
In a place in the Carpathian Mountains which was far from any illumination by electricity, the only light that could be used to photograph this wise man was the open fire of burning wood. Professional photographers told me that I made a big mistake by not illuminating the dark side, and that I should be ashamed to show this picture. The future will decide.
Image Courtesy of Mara Vishniac Kohn, The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, University of California, Berkeley.
-
Jewish Peasant, Carpatho-Ukraine, 1937.
2021.1.117g
Bearded man standing in a field looking into the camera
Text by Roman Vishniac in The Vanished World: A limited-edition portfolio published by Witkin-Berley Ltd.
The peasants around were all so uneducated that you could not speak with them about anything. Their interest was just vodka; only alcohol to drink. But a Jewish peasant -- he was a wise man who knew about life, without having a radio or a newspaper or any information, nothing but his own thought and understanding. And this made his most interesting for all discussions. He asked me if a danger existed and if Hitler’s police would come, arrest him, and send him to death. I feared this too, but I could not advise him. There was no place to go. The whole world was closed and nobody was interested in saving the Jews.
Image Courtesy of Mara Vishniac Kohn, The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, University of California, Berkeley.
-
Heder, Slonim, Russia, 1938.
2021.1.117h
A group of schoolboys being taught in a classroom by an elderly teacher.
Text by Roman Vishniac in The Vanished World: A limited-edition portfolio published by Witkin-Berley Ltd.
In Slonim, the teacher used the only medium, the only tool that works: friendship and love. And he was very successful in this.
Image Courtesy of Mara Vishniac Kohn, The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, University of California, Berkeley.