Leben im Shtejtl
The Photographs Of Roman Vishniac
I sewed some of the negatives into my clothing when I came to the United States in 1940. Most of them were left with my father in Clermont-Ferrand, a small city in central France. He survived there, hidden. He concealed the negatives under floorboards and behind picture frames.[18]
Roman Vishniac, Wikipedia
Also from wiki is this less than flattering side of Vishniac's work:
When photographic curator Maya Benton began to catalog Vishniac's negatives for the archive of the International Center of Photography, she noticed that, in his book A Vanished World, Vishniac juxtaposed photos to tell stories, and wrote captions that were not supported by the material. In the final spread of the book, for example, there is a photo of a man peering through a metal door; on the opposite page a small boy points with his finger to his eye. Vishiniac's caption reads: "The father is hiding from the Endecy (members of the National Democratic Party). His son signals him that they are approaching. Warsaw, 1935–1938." At the front of the book, additional commentary reads: "The pogromshchiki" (pogrom lynch mob) "are coming. But the iron door was no protection." Benton's research found that the photos were from different rolls of film, taken in different towns, so the scene described in the book "almost certainly did not happen".[2]
Similarly, Benton discovered negatives that showed the unsmiling little girl depicted in The Only Flowers of her Youth – whom Vishniac had claimed did not own a pair of shoes – smiling and wearing shoes.[2]
Michael di Capua, who edited Vishniac's text for A Vanished World, has said that he felt disquiet while compiling the text, since so much information was unsubstantiated.[2] Benton also suggested that the terms of Vishniac's commission from the JDC – to photograph "not the fullness of Eastern European Jewish life but its most needy, vulnerable corners for a fund-raising project" – had led to his overemphasizing poor, religious communities in A Vanished World.
On a personal note, I can't help but be touched by his sentimental portrait of a people, the tefillin optics notwithstanding. Sadly, innocent people can be used for not-so-innocent ends.
Some days I truly wish I could be a snowy owl instead of a fuking human. I would be in the Canadian wilderness far away from humans. I guess I’d have to share airspace
on rare occasions. . .