Judaic Studies Lecture. “Bearing Witness: Soviet Jewish Photographers Confront World War II and the Holocaust.”

David Shneer, associate professor of history and director, Program in Jewish Studies, University of Colorado, Boulder. Sponsors: Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, CREES.

In January 1942, three Jewish photographers working for the Soviet press became the first liberators to photography the Holocaust. Who were these photographers? What photographs did they take as journalists for the ‘other ally’? Why were Jewish photographers the ones documenting the war and the Holocaust in the first place? Together, we will study the biographies of these photographers and the stories of their images as we uncover the lost history of the first liberator photographers of World War II.