Then & Now: The Warsaw Ghetto

Blog Features 17 April 2023 Insider 0

As Warsaw counts down to mark the 80th anniversary of the 1943 Jewish Ghetto Uprising, join us as we look through the stunning ‘then...

As Warsaw counts down to mark the 80^th anniversary of the 1943 Jewish Ghetto Uprising, join us as we look through the stunning ‘then and now’ images of Marcin Dziedzic.

Jews cross a wooden footbridge on Chłodna built to connect the ‘small’ and ‘large’ Ghetto.

At what is now Nowolipie 10, German soldiers gather Jews arrested during the course of the Ghetto Uprising.

Jews await deportation to Treblinka at the Umschlagplatz transit depot (today found on ul. Stawki).

The Jewish Ghetto in flames during the 1943 Uprising.

Appearing for the first time nine-years ago, Dziedzic’s Teraz ’43 project – which seamlessly splices old photos with new – was created to complement a similar project undertaken to commemorate the 1944 Warsaw Uprising.

Enjoying viral success with both, Dziedzic worked with both POLIN and the Jewish Historical Institute as he sought to join the dots between the past and the present.

Showing a young boy being marched away under the eye of watchful German guards, one of the Uprising’s most iconic moments is given a contemporary context (today: the corner of Jana Pawła II and Nowolipie).

Close to where POLIN now stands, German soldiers blow up tenements found inside the Jewish Ghetto.

At the intersection of what is now Prosta and Twarda, Germans watch as Jews are marched towards their fate.

Germans eye their captives on the corner of Smocza and Nowolipie.

“With Teraz ’44,” he says, “there were many parts of pre-war Warsaw that survived, but this wasn’t the case with the Ghetto. I found myself having to connect a non-existent city with a completely new one – but I like to think, that maybe because of this the message of Teraz ’43 is even more moving than that of Teraz ’44.”

Whilst Warsaw’s skyline has developed and changed significantly since he posted his first image, the collection of photos remain powerfully evocative, giving as they do regular and familiar landmarks such a jarring historical context.