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Photographer Julien Bryan comforts a ten-year-old Polish girl named Kazimiera Mika, whose older sister was killed in a field in Warsaw during a German air raid.

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    Photographer Julien Bryan comforts a ten-year-old Polish girl named Kazimiera Mika, whose older sister was killed in a field in Warsaw during a German air raid.
    Photographer Julien Bryan comforts a ten-year-old Polish girl named Kazimiera Mika, whose older sister was killed in a field in Warsaw during a German air raid.

In the words of photographer Julien Bryan, "As we drove by a small field at the edge of town we were just a few minutes too late to witness a tragic event, the most incredible of all.  Seven women had been digging potatoes in a field.  There was no flour in their district, and they were desperate for food.  Suddenly two German planes appeared from nowhere and dropped two bombs only two hundred yards away on a small home.  Two women in the house were killed.  The potato diggers dropped flat upon the ground, hoping to be unnoticed.  After the bombers had gone, the women returned to their work.  They had to have food.

But the Nazi fliers were not satisfied with their work.  In a few minutes they came back and swooped down to within two hundred feet of the ground, this time raking the field with machine-gun fire.  Two of the seven women were killed.  The other five escaped somehow.

While I was photographing the bodies, a little ten-year old girl came running up and stood transfixed by one of the dead.  The woman was her older sister.  The child had never before seen death and couldn't understand why her sister would not speak to her...

The child looked at us in bewilderment.  I threw my arm about her and held her tightly, trying to comfort her.  She cried.  So did I and the two Polish officers who were with me..."  [Source: Bryan, Julien. "Warsaw: 1939 Siege; 1959 Warsaw Revisited." Warsaw, Polonia, 1959, pp.20-21.]

    Overview

    Caption
    Photographer Julien Bryan comforts a ten-year-old Polish girl named Kazimiera Mika, whose older sister was killed in a field in Warsaw during a German air raid.

    In the words of photographer Julien Bryan, "As we drove by a small field at the edge of town we were just a few minutes too late to witness a tragic event, the most incredible of all. Seven women had been digging potatoes in a field. There was no flour in their district, and they were desperate for food. Suddenly two German planes appeared from nowhere and dropped two bombs only two hundred yards away on a small home. Two women in the house were killed. The potato diggers dropped flat upon the ground, hoping to be unnoticed. After the bombers had gone, the women returned to their work. They had to have food.

    But the Nazi fliers were not satisfied with their work. In a few minutes they came back and swooped down to within two hundred feet of the ground, this time raking the field with machine-gun fire. Two of the seven women were killed. The other five escaped somehow.

    While I was photographing the bodies, a little ten-year old girl came running up and stood transfixed by one of the dead. The woman was her older sister. The child had never before seen death and couldn't understand why her sister would not speak to her...

    The child looked at us in bewilderment. I threw my arm about her and held her tightly, trying to comfort her. She cried. So did I and the two Polish officers who were with me..." [Source: Bryan, Julien. "Warsaw: 1939 Siege; 1959 Warsaw Revisited." Warsaw, Polonia, 1959, pp.20-21.]
    Photographer
    Julien Bryan
    Date
    1939 September 13
    Locale
    Warsaw, Poland
    Variant Locale
    Warszawa
    Varshava
    Warschau

    Rights & Restrictions

    Photo Source
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    Provenance: Julien Bryan Archive
    Source Record ID: Collections: 2003.214
    Second Record ID: Poland 5
    Published Source
    Warsaw: 1939 Siege; 1959 Warsaw Revisited - Bryan, Julien - Polonia - p. 118

    Keywords & Subjects

    Administrative Notes

    Biography
    Julien Bryan (1899-1974) was a documentary filmmaker who filmed and photographed the everyday life and culture of individuals and communities in a variety of countries around the globe. He never received formal training as a photographer, but learned during the course of his many travels. Bryan hailed from Titusville, PA, was a Princeton graduate, and finished the Union Theological Seminary (though he was never ordained). From an early age he exhibited an interest in world travel and in 1917, as an 18 year-old, he volunteered to serve in the ambulance corps in France, ferrying the wounded soldiers from the battlefield of Verdun to hospitals. During his college years Bryan started making extended trips abroad, which he documented in photographs. He funded his foreign travels by giving public slide lectures in the U.S. about the places he visited. By 1930, when he made his first trip to the Soviet Union, Bryan was equipped with a 35mm motion picture camera as well as his still cameras. In 1937 he made an extended trip to Nazi Germany, during which he took hundreds of pictures of Nazi leaders, party rallies, daily life on the streets, and anti-Jewish propaganda. This material was used in numerous film and slide lectures he delivered at concert halls (including Carnegie Hall in New York) and university auditoriums around the country. Bryan's film footage of Nazi Germany was incorporated in two "March of Time" films in the late 1930s, and was apparently screened at the White House. In the first week of September 1939, Bryan, who had been filming in Europe that summer, found himself on the way to Warsaw just as all foreign reporters and diplomats, as well as Polish government officials, were fleeing the capital in the wake of the German invasion. By the time he realized that the city was about to face a devastating siege, it was too late for him to get out. He therefore decided to take advantage of his situation as the only foreign photographer in the city and record the events with his still and motion picture cameras. In his efforts, Bryan received support from Stefan Starzynski, the mayor of Warsaw, who provided him with a car, guide, interpreter, and a permit to photograph whatever he liked. For two weeks, from September 7 until September 21, Bryan stayed in Warsaw filming and photographing the German bombardment and its impact on the Polish citizenry. He was able to leave during a brief truce that was negotiated to allow citizens of neutral countries to evacuate. Bryan was able to bring his films out, though for a time he got separated from his suitcase of film and thought they were lost. From Warsaw, he was taken to Koenigsberg. While waiting for German officials to decide his fate he hid his films in the chemical container of a gas mask that a fellow American was taking home as a souvenir. Bryan got them back six weeks later in New York. After his return to the U.S. via Sweden and Norway, Bryan published a book on the German Blitzkrieg in Poland, entitled "The Siege." At this time, Bryan was asked by the Office of War Information to make films (23 in all) about the life and culture of various Latin American countries, in an attempt to prevent the spread to the New World of the type of ethnic and national hatred that had overcome Europe. Bryan had no formal sponsorship or source of funding until he set up the International Film Foundation in 1945. For the remainder of his career he made short documentary films for the school market. His son, Sam Bryan, is a historian and schoolteacher who was fully involved in the film production process as well as in the planning and execution of the trips. During the 1980s, the foundation ceased to be economically viable and Sam Bryan closed down most of its operations.

    In 2003 Sam Bryan donated both his father's still and motion picture footage of wartime Europe to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
    Record last modified:
    2021-03-17 00:00:00
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