The woman tells us how her parents Rywka and Juda Putersznyt (later Peters) survived.
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Ross’ photos of life in the Lodz Ghetto: the hunger; the birthday parties and wedding celebrations; encounters with the Judenrat; violence written onto bodies; the struggle to maintain a full life in a constricted zone; the pain of separation from family members.
“These photos are more difficult,” I say when we arrive at scenes of forced labor, of starvation. (More difficult than what?). I have to find a better way to prepare people for this material. (There is no preparation). The photos arrest - their moments, scenes, viewers.
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In the next stretch there is a video: excerpts from Memories of the Eichmann Trial (David Perlov, courtesy of IBA Film Archive, Ch. 1.). Henryk Ross and his wife Stefania reflect on their life in the Lodz Ghetto. Henryk shows how he concealed his camera in his overcoat. Stefania helped; she looked out for guards. Years later, Ross’ photos became evidence when he testified at the trial of Adolf Eichmann.
Ross went to Radegast Station only once - not only because of the danger, but also because he could not bring himself to keep watching people in lines being led to the train.
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The “memory portraits” in the final room ask us to remember not only how people died, but also how they lived. Ross took many of these pictures in the Ghetto’s early years. With few exceptions, the people in them knew that they were being photographed.
A young woman looks up from her book. A child sees his reflection in a mirror. A family poses stern-faced, formal. A couple gazes at each other, smiling. A woman wearing a yellow star looks us in the eye, her dignity a force.
We must also see them this way.