Pre-war photograph of the entrance of the Krakow ghetto

Roman Vishniac was born in 1897 in St. Petersburg, Russia and was educated in the Universities of Moscow and Berlin. From 1933 to 1939, he traveled throughout eastern Europe--Russia, Poland, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, and Lithuania--photographing Jewish communities. He was arrested and imprisoned repeatedly by police who suspected him of photographing Jews. Of the sixteen thousand images he took, two thousand negatives still exist. Vishniac's photographs were made with a hidden Leica camera which he wrapped a handkerchief around and exposed the film as he wiped his brow. He also used a concealed Rollei or 2-1/4 x 2-1/4 camera. The Rollei was kept under his coat with the lens protruding through an enlargened button hole. 

The photograph was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1991 by Mara Vishniac Kohn. 

Pre-war photograph of the entrance of the Krakow ghetto 

overall: Height: 28.190 inches (71.603 cm) | Width: 22.130 inches (56.21 cm) 

In the catalog accompanying these photographs, Vishniac described"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" Original created by Roman Vishniac (donor's father), 1938, Krakow, Poland. Reproduced from original negative by Witkin-Berley Limited, 1977, Roslyn Heights, New York. 

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Image of a man in dark clothing walking down cobbled alley with his back to viewer; buildings to front and sides of him with balconies all along second story; two people in background; it is raining. Image permanently mounted on board; verso, printed label, lower left corner,"No. 1 of portfolio No. 33 published in 1977 by Witkin-Berley, Ltd"