Faye Schulman (1919 - 2021)

Fri Nov 28, 1919

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Faye Schulman, born on this day in 1919, was a Jewish partisan and photographer who took up arms against the Nazis who were responsible for killing her family.

On August 14th, 1942, the Germans killed 1,850 Jews from the “Lenin” ghetto (named after Lenin, Poland, where Faye was from), including her parents, sisters, and younger brother. Faye was spared for her ability to develop photographs, and the Nazis ordered Faye to develop their photographs of the massacre. Later, she cited taking a photo of her dead family in a mass grave as the impetus to take up arms.

During a partisan raid on the camp, Faye fled to the forests and joined the Molotava Brigade, a partisan group mostly comprised of escaped Soviet Red Army POWs. She was accepted because her brother-in-law had been a doctor and they were desperate for anyone who knew anything about medicine. Faye served the group as a nurse from September 1942 to July 1944, even though she had no previous medical experience.

During another raid on the Lenin ghetto, Faye succeeded in recovering her old photographic equipment. During the next two years, she took over a hundred photographs, developing the medium format negatives under blankets and making “sun prints” during the day. While on missions, Faye buried the camera and tripod to keep it safe. Schulman is the only known Jewish partisan photographer from this era.

After the war, Faye and her husband Morris left for a displaced-persons camp in West Germany, where they smuggled people and weapons to support the movement for an independent Israel, making plans to emigrate to British-controlled Palestine themselves.

“I want people to know that there was resistance. Jews did not go like sheep to the slaughter. I was a photographer. I have pictures. I have proof.”

- Faye Schulman