Photography as a Form of Resistance Against the Nazis

Mendel Grossman, a Jewish photographer employed by the Department of Statistics in the Lodz Ghetto, was hired to photograph the factories in the ghetto and to take identification pictures. However, he risked his life to clandestinely photograph the suffering of Jews, the destruction of Jewish life, and the Nazi deportations of Jews to the death camps. Grossman’s gallery can be seen here. Grossman was not the only Jewish photographer who engaged in this form of resistance against the Nazis. His contemporary, Henryk Ross, also disobeyed orders, risking his life to secretly photograph the tortuous living conditions of Jews in the Lodz ghetto.