Unpublished photographs of war crimes committed by German soldiers during The Second World War from the collection of a famous Soviet photographer Evgeny Khaldey exhibited for the first time.

“This has never been shown in Moscow, no one has seen it before”declares EFE Maria Gadas, curator of a photo exhibition at the Jewish Museum, which opened its doors in the Russian capital on Tuesday, a day before the 79th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany.

According to the Commissioner, this “unique collection” Compiled over many years by Chaldean, who captured iconic images of the conflict and the Nuremberg Trials for history.

Creator of Nazi horror films

“He spent his entire life collecting this documentary evidence. Many of these photographs were confiscated from German prisoners or found on their corpses. The Germans made very detailed graphic records of everything that was happening: executions, atrocities, and wrote comments on the back.”Explain.

The photographs displayed on the walls or in display cases, armed with old wooden planks, convey the ambiguous military atmosphere of a trench or concentration camp barracks. accompanied by inscriptions, many of which were made by the Germans themselves that they caught them.

Heaps of corpses, bodies lying on the street, starving concentration camp prisoners, The bloody photographs, not suitable for minors, are evidence of the horrors of war and the cruelty of the Nazis, says Russian photographer Alexander Borodulin, to whom Khaldei bequeathed his collection before his death.

However, the exhibition Consists of more than two hundred photos and almost a hundred videos.documents, diaries, field notes, newspaper clippings, personal belongings, medals – this is much broader,” notes the curator.

Jews, victims and protagonists

In addition to Khaldei’s collection, which includes his own photographs, such as one that captures the grim procession of refugees in conflict-ravaged Murmansk, the exhibition showcases graphic testimonies from fifteen other photographers and war correspondents of Jewish descent..

All works, many of which are unique, were donated by the Archive of Literature and Art, the Institute of Russian History of the Academy of Sciences and private collectors.

This is an idea that we have had for a long time, as it sought to clarify the participation of Jews in World War II, who were more than just victims. We wanted to show that this story wasn’t just about the Holocaust, that they were actively involved in the conflict.