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.
“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
After liberation, Faye married Morris Schulman, also a Jewish partisan. Faye and Morris enjoyed a prosperous life as decorated Soviet partisans, but wanted to leave Pinsk, Poland, which reminded them of “a graveyard.” Morris and Faye lived in the Landsberg displaced persons camp in Germany for the next three years and immigrated to Canada in 1948.
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remorse posting, romance posting, navel gazing, ugly self pity
kinda wish i’d realized or admit to myself that my partner wasn’t the person for me long term earlier, and that it wasn’t feelings for someone else that triggered the feelings that ended things. it would have been more fair and gentle for both of us. she would talk about growing old together and i always knew something about that image seemed fantastical & farcical to me. and then i low key emotionally cheated, i guess, when i could have been honest with myself and brave but instead i’m a coward. and now i’m sailing this bizarre and uncharted sea of loneliness and the end of my youth is visible on the horizon and i don’t know how to bea a person out here properly. i guess i’ve learned some since i’ve started. but i didnt realize when i bailed on her how much we’d hollowed out our social institutions where people used to find love. and i could die unexpectedly before my time in my dark apartment now and i’d be alone.
i don’t know. i just want to be held. instead i’m a background character in the lives of most of the people i interact with most frequently and if i died there’d be a passing melancholy that’s quickly forgotten.