Self-portrait of photographer Julia Diament Pirotte in Marseille.

Photograph | Digitized | Photograph Number: 29813

Overview

Caption: Self-portrait of photographer Julia Diament Pirotte in Marseille.

Julia Diamant Pirotte grew up in a working class Jewish family in Warsaw. As a young woman in the 1930s she emigrated to Belgium, where she married and studied photography. After the German occupation of Belgium and the deportation of her husband, Pirotte made her way to southern France. There she played an active role in Jewish and French resistance groups. Based in Marseilles, where she was employed as a photo journalist by Dimanche Illustre, Pirotte served as a courrier of weapons, false papers and underground publications. In addition, she took numerous photos documenting life under the Vichy regime. In 1943 she smuggled out to the United States a photographic report entitled "France under the Occupation," some of which was published in American periodicals. As a member of the FTP, Francs-Tireurs et Partisans, she was able to photograph the activities of the Maquis resistance in the summer of 1944 and the final liberation of Marseilles. After the war Pirotte worked as a photo journalist for the Polish periodical Zolnierz Polski. During that period she covered the Kielce Pogrom of July 4, 1946 and its aftermath.
Photographer: Julia Pirotte
Date: 1943
Locale: Marseilles, [Bouches-du-Rhone] France
Variant Locale: Marseille
Photo Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Julia Pirotte

Keyword: CAMERAS CLOSE-UPS JEWS (POLISH) PHOTOGRAPHERS/FILM CREWS PIROTTE, JULIA RESISTERS/RESISTANCE
Photo Designation: RESISTANCE & PARTISANS -- France -- Resisters' Portraits