Memory Unearthed
The Lodz Ghetto Photographs of Henryk Ross
March 25, 2017 – July 30, 2017
Perspective
‘I buried my negatives in the ground in order that there
should be some record of our tragedy.’ The photographs of Henryk Ross.
Writer Chloe Coleman March
6
Police in the Lodz Ghetto, run by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland, escort
residents for deportation during World War II. (Henryk Ross/Art Gallery of
Ontario/Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
Officially, former Polish press photojournalist Henryk Ross
was forced to work by the Nazi regime as a bureaucratic photographer for the
Jewish Administration’s statistics department. He took photographs for Jewish
identification cards, as well as images used as propaganda for the Lodz Ghetto.
Ross, a Jew, was one of at least 160,000 people held in the Lodz Ghetto in
Poland, second only to the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Europe.
Unofficially, at great personal danger, Ross documented the
cruel truth of life under Nazi rule. In the four-year existence of the Lodz
Ghetto, a quarter of its prisoners died of starvation. In 1942, nearly 20,000
were deported to the death camp of Chelmno; in 1944, 70,000 were sent to
Auschwitz.
A sign in the Lodz Ghetto says: “Residential Area of the Jews, entry
forbidden.” (Henryk Ross/Art Gallery of Ontario/Courtesy of Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston)
Lodz Ghetto: A man walks in winter in the ruins of the synagogue on Wolborska
Street, which was destroyed by the Germans in 1939. (Henryk Ross/Art Gallery of
Ontario/Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
“Soup for lunch”: Men eat from pails in the Lodz Ghetto. (Henryk Ross/Art
Gallery of Ontario/Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
Ross buried his negatives in 1944 in attempt to preserve the
historical record of what had happened in Lodz. As one of the mere 877 recorded
survivors of the ghetto, Ross returned for the negatives after Lodz’s
liberation, discovering that more than half of the original 6,000 remained
intact.
The wife and child of a police officer in the Lodz Ghetto. (Henryk Ross/Art
Gallery of Ontario/Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
Children talk through the fence of the central prison on Czarnecki Street
before deportation from the Lodz Ghetto. (Henryk Ross/Art Gallery of
Ontario/Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
Police keep watch in the Lodz Ghetto. (Henryk Ross/Art Gallery of
Ontario/Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
Children being transported to Chelmno nad Nerem (renamed Kulmhof) death camp
from the Lodz Ghetto. (Henryk Ross/Art Gallery of Ontario/Courtesy Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston)
A girl in the Lodz Ghetto. (Henryk Ross/Art Gallery of Ontario/Courtesy of Museum
of Fine Arts, Boston)
A scarecrow in the Lodz Ghetto. (Henryk Ross/Art Gallery of Ontario/Courtesy of
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
An exhibition, “Memory
Unearthed,” organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario, presents more
than 200 of Ross’s photographs. It is on view in Boston’s Museum of Fine
Arts from March 25 to July 30.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-sight/wp/2017/03/06/i-buried-my-negatives-in-the-ground-in-order-that-there-should-be-some-record-of-our-tragedy-henryk-ross/?hpid=hp_no-name_photo-story-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.4d493373152a
http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/memory-unearthed
On View In
Jeanne and Stokley Towles Gallery (Gallery 261), Catherine and Paul Buttenwieser Gallery (Gallery 262), Ives Family Gallery (Gallery 263), and Lizbeth and George Krupp Gallery (Gallery 264)
“Memory Unearthed,” organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario, presents more than 200 of Ross’s powerful photographs, comprising a moving, intimate visual record of the Holocaust. The images are accompanied by artifacts, including Ross’s own identity card, and ghetto notices. An album of contact prints, handcrafted by Ross and shown in its entirety as the centerpiece of the exhibition, serves as a summation of his memories, capturing his personal narrative.
HENRYK ROSS PHOTOGRAPHING FOR IDENTIFICATION CARDS, JEWISH ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS, 1940
Gelatin silver print. Collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario. Gift from Archive of Modern Conflict, 2007. © Art Gallery of Ontario, 2017.
HENRYK ROSS, BOY WALKING IN FRONT OF THE BRIDGE CROSSING ZIGERSKA (THE “ARYAN”), 1940–42
Gelatin silver print. Collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario. Gift from Archive of Modern Conflict, 2007. © Art Gallery of Ontario, 2017.
HENRYK ROSS, MEN HAULING CART FOR BREAD DISTRIBUTION, 1942
Gelatin silver print. Collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario. Gift from Archive of Modern Conflict, 2007. © Art Gallery of Ontario, 2017.
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