ワルシャワ・ゲットー蜂起の新たな写真公開 ポーランド人消防士が撮影

【ワルシャワＡＦＰ＝時事】第２次世界大戦中、ナチス・ドイツがポーランドに設置したユダヤ人隔離居住区「ワルシャワ・ゲットー」での蜂起の際にポーランド人消防士が撮影した未公開の写真がこのほど、報道陣に公開された。（写真はワルシャワ・ゲットーからユダヤ人が移送される様子。ポーランド・ユダヤ人歴史博物館提供）
　１９４３年の蜂起の際の写真だが、実際の戦闘の様子は写っていない。代わりに、建物から立ち上る炎、がれきだらけの無人の通り、ユダヤ人を強制収容所へと導くドイツ兵など、この世の終わりのような光景が捉えられている。
　歴史家のヤツェク・レオチャク氏は会見で「このフィルムは、ユダヤ人を非人間的で無名の犠牲者として捉えている処刑者というドイツ人の視点を超えたものであり、貴重な記録だ」と説明した。
　ポーランド・ユダヤ人歴史博物館のキュレーター、ズザンナ・シュネプフコワチェ氏は、「ドイツ人以外の手による、プロパガンダ目的ではないゲットーでの蜂起を捉えた写真としては唯一のものだ」とＡＦＰに語った。
　写真を撮影したのは、非ユダヤ人のズビグニエフ・グジバチェウスキ氏。息子のマチェイ氏（６８）が昨年１２月、屋根裏で写真のアーカイブが入った箱から１本のフィルムを見つけた。そこには３３枚写っていた。
　マチェイ氏によると、フィルムがあることは１９９３年に父親が死んでから長年忘れ去られていた。「父はゲットーで写真を撮ったことを決して話さなかった。口にするのが難しかったのだろう」
　ズビグニエフ氏が当時、写真に捉えられている以上の惨劇を目撃したのは明らかだ。
　ゲットーにいた人たちの顔は一生忘れないと書き記している。「飢えと失望でよろめく、ひどく不潔でボロボロな姿の人々。一斉射撃で殺された」「まだ生きている人が死体の上に倒れ込む」
　ワルシャワ・ゲットー蜂起の際、ナチスは隠れていた住民やレジスタンスをあぶり出すため、建物に火を付けた。消防士だったズビグニエフ氏は、蜂起後に消火のため呼ばれたのだった。
　第２次世界大戦中につくられたものとしては最大規模のワルシャワ・ゲットーは１９４０年、ナチスにより設置された。ユダヤ人約５０万人が狭い区画に詰め込まれ、病気や飢えがまん延していた。
　ワルシャワの人口の４分の１に当たる生き残ったユダヤ人２６万人が、トレブリンカ強制収容所に移送され、殺害された。
　写真はワルシャワ・ゲットー蜂起から８０年を迎える今年４月、ワルシャワで一般公開される。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2023/02/06-13:13）

Never-before-seen photos of the Warsaw Ghetto -- from a roll of film shot by a Polish firefighter under the noses of the occupying Germans -- were unveiled to journalists Wednesday.
Although taken during the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising when Jews rose up against the Nazi occupiers, they do not depict the actual fighting.
But they do show apocalyptic scenes of buildings on fire, deserted streets strewn with rubble, and German soldiers escorting Jews to their deaths.
Recently discovered in an attic, the photos will go on show to the public in the Polish capital in April on the 80th anniversary of the uprising.
Photos taken by Germans constitute the quasi-majority of the photographic documentation of the Holocaust, historian Jacek Leociak told reporters. We see the ghetto through their eyes.
This roll of film is a priceless record because it goes beyond the German perspective, the perspective of executioners showing Jews as dehumanised, anonymous victims, he said.
These are the only known photographs (from the ghetto during the uprising) not taken by the Germans and not taken for propaganda purposes, Zuzanna Schnepf-Kolacz curator at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, told AFP.
- Lost for decades -
The roll of film, which includes 33 photos from the ghetto, was shot by Zbigniew Grzywaczewski, a non-Jewish Pole and firefighter.
It was only rediscovered in December 2022 by his son, Maciej.
He found the old roll, its edges slightly mangled, in a cardboard box with photo archives. They had lain there forgotten for decades since Grzywaczewski's death in 1993, he told AFP.
My father never told us that he took photos inside the ghetto -- maybe because it was too difficult for him, said Maciej Grzywaczewski, 68.
His father's journal entries from that time -- May 1943 -- made it clear that he had seen far worse than the photos depicted.
The faces of those in the ghetto would stay with him forever, he wrote.
Figures staggering from hunger and dismay, filthy, ragged. Shot dead en masse.
Those still alive falling over the bodies of the ones who have already been annihilated.
As a firefighter, his father had been called to put out fires started by the Nazis following the outbreak of the uprising.
The Germans had systematically set fire to buildings in the ghetto to force out the residents and insurgents hiding inside.
A year after invading Poland in 1939, Germany created the Warsaw ghetto -- the biggest of its kind in World War II -- to hold almost half a million Jews.
People were crammed into a small neighbourhood where disease and hunger were rife.
Of those who survived the conditions, 260,000 -- a quarter of Warsaw's population -- were deported to the Treblinka extermination camp and killed as part of the Holocaust.
On April 19, 1943, hundreds of Jewish fighters launched their revolt against the Nazis, preferring to die fighting than in the gas chambers.
- 'War and Love' -
Most of the photos Grzywaczewski shot inside the ghetto had been lost to history until now. Only 12 cropped prints on low-quality paper had been shown before.
They were made during or just after the war and given by the author to a Jewish family he had been hiding in his apartment.
After emigrating to the US, the family donated the prints in the 1990s to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
About six months ago, the curators preparing the upcoming exhibition -- who knew about those prints -- got in touch with the late photographer's family in the hopes of locating other images.
That was when his son, Maciej, found them.
At first, he said, he failed to uncover anything in response to the museum's request.
Then, finally, as I was looking through the last of the boxes containing my father's photo archives, I found the roll of film.
Most of the scenes were from the ghetto, but there were also images of Maciej's mother and other family members.
You could label the roll of film, 'War and Love', he said.