WITNESSarchive

W–003 · Documentary photograph and sources

The Boy in the Warsaw Ghetto

“The Jewish Quarter of Warsaw Is No More!” proclaimed an SS report in the spring of 1943. It presented the destruction of the ghetto as a military success. Suppressing the uprising, German forces drove people out of hiding and towards the Umschlagplatz for deportation. Photographs made during the operation were intended for a report to the SS leadership.

1. Original photograph

Jewish women and children emerge from hiding with their hands raised during the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto. Photographer unknown; from the Stroop Report.
Jewish women and children emerge from hiding with their hands raised during the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto. Photographer unknown; from the Stroop Report.
Provenance and sources for frame 1

Displayed file: 2766 × 1964 pixels. The source record discusses public-domain status; check which jurisdiction it covers. This frame or variant is a colourisation; its method and credit are described in the source record. Full image record in Russian.

eng.ipn.gov.pleng.ipn.gov.plunesco.orgcatalog.archives.govcommons.wikimedia.orgView image file

SS General Jürgen Stroop prepared the report for Heinrich Himmler. Roughly 125 pages and fifty-three photographs recorded, in Stroop’s terms, the liquidation of the ghetto.

The picture of women and children with raised hands appeared in the report under the caption “Pulled from the bunkers by force.” At the right stands SS man Josef Blösche, whose identity has been established. The boy in the large cap at the centre remains unknown. Several names have been proposed over the decades, but none has sufficient archival support.

The photographer is unknown. Franz Konrad acknowledged making some pictures for the report; others have been associated with Propaganda Company 689. No surviving copy names the maker of the boy’s negative.

After the war, the report assembled for SS leaders became evidence at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. It was later used in trials in Poland. Stroop was sentenced to death and executed in Warsaw on 6 March 1952.

Archival copies of the report are held in Warsaw and the United States. Poland’s copy, belonging to the Institute of National Remembrance, is inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World register.

2. Hand-coloured version

A later hand-coloured version of the Warsaw Ghetto photograph by Ruffneck’88, made in 2017. The original image comes from the Stroop Report.
A later hand-coloured version of the Warsaw Ghetto photograph by Ruffneck’88, made in 2017. The original image comes from the Stroop Report.
Provenance and sources for frame 2

Displayed file: 2766 × 1964 pixels. The source record discusses public-domain status; check which jurisdiction it covers. This frame or variant is a colourisation; its method and credit are described in the source record. Full image record in Russian.

eng.ipn.gov.pleng.ipn.gov.plunesco.orgcatalog.archives.govcommons.wikimedia.orgView image file