Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, War, and the Holocaust

Description

In January 1942, three Jewish photographers working for the Soviet press became the first liberators to photograph 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 as told in author David Shneer’s new book Through Soviet Jewish Eyes.

David Shneer is Professor of History and Director of the Program in Jewish Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Called a “taboo-breaking scholar” by Tikkun magazine, Shneer’s work concentrates on modern Jewish society and culture. His books include Queer Jews, finalist for the Lambda Literary award, Yiddish and the Creation of Soviet Jewish Culture, finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, and New Jews: The End of the Jewish Diaspora, that has sparked discussion in publications like the Economist and the Jerusalem Post. His newest book, Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, War, & the Holocaust, which is the subject of this talk, looks at the lives and works of two dozen World War II military photographers to examine what kinds of photographs they took when they encountered evidence of Nazi genocide on the Eastern Front. He has written for the New York Times, Huffington Post, Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post as well as magazines dedicated to Jewish life and culture, including Forward, Pakntreger, Jewcy, and Nextbook.