(Documentary) U.S. 2023 90 min. NR
Director: Laura Bialis
Roman Vishniac is best known for having traversed Eastern Europe from 1935 through 1938, on assignment to photograph Jewish life. Less than a decade later these communities would be wiped out and Vishniac’s iconic photographs would provide the last visual records of an entire world. Through his photographs, we see Jewish life — in Eastern European shtetls and in Weimar-era Berlin — and witness the Nazi rise to power. After the war, his documentation continued with photographs of Berlin in ruins and Jewish children in Displaced Persons camps. Vishniac was also a respected scientist who made considerable contributions in the field of microscopic photography.