Vishniac: The Man Who Documented Shtetls and the Jews Who Lived There

Before they fled National Socialist Berlin, Roman Vishniac took an eerie photo of his daughter Mara standing in front of a propaganda poster of Adolph Hitler that says: “Fight with us for peace and equality.” Does that sound familiar to any group staging large demonstrations today? Vishniac documented the lives of European Jewry on the eve of the Holocaust, but lived to reinvent himself in America. Director Laura Bialis chronicles his life and legacy in the documentary, Vishniac, which opens Friday in New York.

Vishniac was born in Russia to a Jewish family, but the new Communist regime forced them to relocate—to Berlin. That was Weimar Berlin, Europe’s leading city for tolerance, sophistication, and culture. Vishniac thrived there personally, but he did not find his niche professionally, until the American Jewish Joint Relief Committee (JDC) commissioned him to document the lives of shtetl residents throughout Eastern Europe.

Conditions for European Jews were always difficult, but neither Vishniac or the JDC expected the horror of the Holocaust. Of course, that gave his photo studies incredible significance, since were the last (and in most case, only) images of people and a way of life that would soon disappear.

Today, the visual power of his photos, collected in books like The Vanished World, remain hauntingly arresting. They are a remainder of why there will always be a real and pressing need for a Jewish homeland. Let’s not kid ourselves. The “anti-Zionists” really just want to leave the Jewish people vulnerable to more pogroms. If you can watch Vishniiac or look at his pictures and not own up to the Jew-hating reality of the pro-Hamas demonstrations, then you are a coward and you are kidding yourself.

Indeed, Vishniac could not be timelier. Yet, Vishniac the man had a meaningful second act in life. Essentially, he developed a new career and identity for himself as a science photographer and filmmaker. His microscopic cellular photos appeared in Life magazine, when it was like the Instagram of its day. With his educational films and lecture series, he became sort of an early forerunner to Mr. Wizard or Bill Nye (the bachelor's degree guy).

As a result, there is more to Vishniac than the tragedy that he escaped. He led a messy but unusually instructive and full life. That also gives Bialis’s film a slightly different arc than many other Holocaust related documentaries. Yet, it is ultimately quite a moving story.

It is a blessing Vishniac’s photos have survived, because so many people clearly want to forget the Holocaust and all the pogroms that came before it. According to a recent Economist poll, 20% of Millennials and Gen Z’ers believe the Holocaust is a hoax. That is terrifying. We need more films Vishniac to keep the facts and memory alive, but society must figure out a way to tear these young creeps away from tiktok and make them want to watch something truthful. At least Vishniac will be there, waiting for them. (Bialis also directed the terrific Rock in the Red Zone and the equally accomplished Refusenik, both of which deserve revival screenings during this precarious moment in history.) Highly recommended for decent people and those who really need to see it, Vishniac opens Friday (1/19) in New York, at the Quad.