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An undertaker views a layer of corpses laid out at the bottom of a mass grave in the Okopowa Street cemetery.

Photograph | Photograph Number: 32165
An undertaker views a layer of corpses laid out at the bottom of a mass grave in the Okopowa Street cemetery. Joest's caption reads: "Once again a layer of the dead was finished and now had to be covered with lime. I couldn't believe one pit could have space for so many people."

An undertaker views a layer of corpses laid out at the bottom of a mass grave in the Okopowa Street cemetery.

Joest's caption reads: "Once again a layer of the dead was finished and now had to be covered with lime. I couldn't believe one pit could have space for so many people."

Photographer
Heinrich Joest
Date
1941 September 19
Locale
Warsaw, Poland
Variant Locale
Warszawa
Varshava
Warschau
Photo Designation
GHETTOS (MAJOR) -- WARSAW (Poland) -- Death/Burial -- Cemeteries/Mass Graves/Funerals
Photo Credit
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Guenther Schwarberg

About This Photograph

Biography
Heinrich Joest, German army sergeant during World War II who photographed the Warsaw ghetto. Jost was in his early forties, the owner of a hotel in Langenlonsheim, when he was called to serve in the German army during World War II. On September 19,1941, his birthday, Joest was stationed in Warsaw. On that day he decided to take his Rolleiflex camera into the ghetto because he wanted "to see what went on behind the ghetto walls." Once inside, Joest shot 140 images of every aspect of ghetto life and death. He kept the images to himself until 1982 when he met Guenther Schwarberg, a reporter for "Der Stern" magazine, who interviewed him and facilitated the publication of some of his images in 1988.

Keywords and Subjects

Rights and Restrictions

Photo Source
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Provenance: Guenther Schwarberg
Source Record ID: Collections: 2004.1.123
Second Record ID: Collections: 2004.1.1
 
Record last modified: 2004-05-10 00:00:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1151994