To Give Them Light

In this magnificent collection by one of the great photographers of this century, the lost world of Eastern Europe's Jewish communities once again comes to life. Between 1936 and 1939, Roman Vishniac traveled through the Jewish settlements of Carpathian Ruthenia, Slovakia, and Poland, passionately documenting a rich and vital culture that would soon cease to exist. As Elie Wiesel writes in his eloquent preface, "To Give Them Light takes us on a journey, an unforgettable journey, from Bratislava to Mukachevo and the Carpathians, where Jews believed in God's light alone; and on through the distinct and irreplaceable Jewish communities of Poland - Warsaw and Lodz, Lublin and Cracow, Slonim and Vilna. We meet Jews in those last minutes before they were torn from history by a tempest of fire and ashes; when their lives still coursed with energy and creativity. We encounter their towns and villages before they were consumed by flames". The vibrant, intimate world of Vishniac's photographs contains shepherds and sages, waifs and dignitaries, cheder boys and traveling salesmen, housewives, shopkeepers, and "carriers of heavy loads". In the Carpathians, a man walks to work with a saw under one arm, a prayer shawl under the other. In Lublin, a woman sells baked goods at the Old City wall, while in the yeshiva, "entranced young faces look beyond earthly existence". In Vilna, children play ball at the entrance to the ghetto. For Vishniac, the glance or gesture of each mother, each child, was a story that had to be told. As Cornell Capa writes at the beginning of this volume, Roman Vishniac "was selected through divine grace to give us his memory of a world that has vanished, a world you are holdingin your hands". To Give Them Light includes nearly 140 photographs as well as brief excerpts from Vishniac's unpublished diaries.