Roman Vishniac, Zbaczyn, 1938

An image that saved a human life

Roman Vishniac

An installation for the exhibition Expelled! Berlin, 28 October 1938 . The History of the “Polish Action,” Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin—Centrum Judaicum.

Lying on a cot within a detention camp, a girl looks at the camera. She is one of thousands of German-residing Jewish Polish nationals, who, on October 28th, 1938, were deported by German authorities to Zbacyzn, a Polish border town where they became stranded.

Over fourty years later, in 1983, New York Bronx-resident Nettie Katz discovers this image—and thus herself, as eleven-year-old girl Nettie Stub—in Roman Vishniac’s book “A Vanished World” (1984). Although her parents and two sisters were murdered by the Germans in Poland, Katz managed escape to the safe confines of Sweden via children’s transport, on May 10th, 1939. She is convinced this picture saved her life.

Roman Vishniac (1897-1990) is one of the most eminent photographers of the 20^th century, whose images have fundamentally shaped our ideas of Jewish living environments before their destruction.