Objects

Photograph (slide) of the Warsaw ghetto burning at night (I)

A photograph of the burning Warsaw Ghetto: red-framed slide with black text repeated at all edges: "MADE IN GERMANY | TRIX ZEISS | IKON [the last two words framed by a thin, in places rounded line; another line is in the middle of the frame between them] 3560/1". The glass inside the frame is fixed with points.

Against a black background, which fills most of the frame, there are yellowish flames and a slightly darker glow, leaning to the left (west). The writing in the upper margin of the slide on the left says: "AGFACOLOR" (company inscription identifying agfacolor film). The writing in the lower margin says: "18" and "18 A". Compare the description of the photographs in this series: MPOLIN-A2.2.7, MPOLIN-A2.2.8.

The photograph was taken at night, from the roof of the then seven-storey (now four-storey) corner tenement house on Dąbrowskiego Square, at the junction of Kredytowa and Jasna streets (near the Italian embassy). In the foreground, in front of the space illuminated by flames, there are dark blocks of buildings, the upper, uneven edge of which runs about 1 cm above the lower edge of the photograph. In the centre there is a tower, to the left of it a vast building or buildings with a rather flat roof.

Interpretation: in the centre of the shot there is, as one might think, the ridge turret of St Anthony of Padua Church on Senatorska Street, and to the left there are the buildings of the Palace of the Ministry of Revenue and Treasury and the Palace of the Minister of the Treasury. At earlier stages of the photograph's development, an assumption was made that the correct obverse of the photograph was the side where the tower is on the left, and the building - then on the right - was supposed to be the building of the Grand Theatre. However, this is a worse interpretation than the one described above, especially if one takes into account the writings on the diapositive, clearly indicating the obverse.

Przemysław Kaniecki

czytaj więcej
Information about the object
Author/creator
Borowczyk, Zbigniew (?-1988)
Object type
photography
Time of creation / dating
20th century
Created place
Warszawa (mazovian province)
Technique
colour photograph
printing
diapositive
Material
photographic film
cardboard
paper
glass
metal
paint
Keywords
Copyright status
the object is not protected by copyright law
Owner
POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
Identification number
MPOLIN-A2.2.6