Transcript [00:00] I want people to know that there was [00:02] resistance. Jews did not go like sheep [00:04] to the slaughter. I was a photographer. [00:06] I have pictures. I have proof. This is [00:08] the story of Faye Lazebnik Schulman, a [00:11] Holocaust survivor who turned [00:12] photography into resistance. In 1942, [00:16] Faye was a young Jewish woman living in [00:18] Lenin, Poland, now Belarus. When the [00:20] Nazis murdered 1,850 Jews, most of her [00:24] large family were among the victims. [00:27] Only 26 Jews were spared that day, and [00:30] Faye was one of them. She survived for [00:32] one reason. She was a photographer. [00:34] Before the war, she had helped her older [00:36] brother in his photography studio. The [00:38] Nazis needed someone to develop and [00:40] print photos, often for propaganda [00:42] purposes, so they kept her alive and [00:44] forced her to develop the photographs [00:46] they had just taken of the massacre in [00:48] Lenin. Faye secretly made copies. Her [00:51] camera would remain her faithful [00:52] companion throughout the war. After [00:54] witnessing the mass execution of Jews in [00:56] her town, Faye wanted to fight. She [00:59] escaped to the forest during a raid and [01:01] joined Soviet partisans, armed [01:03] resistance fighters battling the Nazis [01:05] from behind enemy lines. They were [01:07] mostly non-Jewish Russian and [01:08] Belorussian fighters. As a young Jewish [01:11] woman alone in the forest, she had to [01:13] prove herself in order to stay alive. [01:15] For the partisans, it wasn't enough that [01:17] she could take and develop photos. They [01:19] needed a nurse to care for the wounded, [01:21] and since her brother-in-law was a [01:22] doctor, they believed she had enough [01:24] knowledge to help. So, Faye became a [01:25] nurse, and deep in the forest, she [01:28] assisted the group's assigned doctor, [01:30] who in normal life was actually a [01:31] veterinarian. In the freezing forest, in [01:33] makeshift bunkers with almost no [01:35] supplies, she treated wounded fighters. [01:38] She cleaned infected wounds. She stemmed [01:40] bleeding. Sometimes she even helped to [01:42] operate right there in the forest. Faye [01:45] carried a rifle and went on missions to [01:47] help sabotage rail lines and German [01:49] supply routes. She survived freezing [01:51] winters, hunger, and the constant threat [01:53] of betrayal or attack, but she also [01:55] carried something else, her camera. In [01:57] the middle of the forest, in hiding, a [01:59] in motion, she documented partisan life. [02:02] She photographed fighters training, [02:04] celebrating, and in moments of grief. [02:07] She captured women in uniform. She [02:09] captured Jewish resistance, something [02:11] the world was barely seeing. She buried [02:13] the negatives in jars in the forest to [02:15] protect them from discovery, and [02:17] developed the film in secret forest [02:18] bunkers. Think about that. At a time [02:21] when Nazis were trying to erase Jews [02:23] from history, Fay Shulman was creating [02:25] evidence to tell their story and prove [02:28] that they fought back. Photography [02:29] wasn't just memory, it was defiance, it [02:32] was proof, it was survival. After the [02:34] war, Fay eventually immigrated to Canada [02:37] and rebuilt her life. She passed away in [02:39] 2021 at the age of 101. But, for [02:43] decades, Fay shared her photographs and [02:45] her testimony, challenging the myth that [02:47] the Jews did not fight back. She showed [02:49] the world armed resistance. She showed [02:51] women fighters, and she showed courage [02:54] in the darkest place imaginable. Her [02:56] camera did more than capture history, it [02:59] fought back. So, next time someone says [03:01] resistance only looks like weapons, [03:03] remember Fay Shulman. Sometimes [03:05] resistance looks like a camera in the [03:07] snow.
The exact same photograph can be a perpetrator’s trophy - or a victim’s evidence.
In August 1942, German forces murdered most of the Jewish community in the Lenin ghetto in Poland (now Belarus). Faye Schulman was one of the few survivors. She survived for one reason: she was a photographer.
The Nazis needed her to develop and print photos for their records and propaganda – but Faye secretly made copies. She eventually escaped to the forests and joined the partisans to fight back against the regime.
At a time when the Nazis were trying to erase Jews from history, Faye Schulman was creating evidence to tell their story and preserve the proof of their resistance.
Watch to learn the incredible story of partisan photographer Faye Schulman.
Visit the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation's virtual exhibition, Pictures of Resistance: The Wartime Photography of Jewish Partisan Faye Schulman, to learn more:
https://jewishpartisans.org/pictures-of-resistance-virtual-exhibit
