For centuries, Ukraine has been home to one of the largest and most influential Jewish communities in the world. Its cultural richness and tragic history have been reflected through the lenses of talented photographers of Jewish descent who were born in this land. These artists not only documented the lives of their communities, but also left a legacy that has influenced global photography. From Soviet propaganda photographs to personal testimonies of the Holocaust, their work is an invaluable artefact of history. Here is a story about the most prominent Jewish photographers from Ukraine whose lenses became the voice of an era.
Yevhen Khaldei: Eyewitness to war and victory
Yevhen Khaldei (1917-1997), a native of Donetsk (then Yuzivka), became one of the most famous Soviet photographers of the twentieth century. Born into a poor Jewish family, he lost his mother in a pogrom at an early age, and during the Holodomor of 1932-1933 he was forced to leave school to help his family. His career began with propaganda photographs for TASS, where he glorified Soviet workers and collective farmers. But Khaldei’s real fame came during the Second World War.
His most famous shot, The Flag over the Reichstag (2 May 1945), became a symbol of the Soviet victory over Nazism. Chaldei filmed Soviet soldiers raising the red flag over the destroyed Berlin, although he later admitted that the production was partly staged: he brought the flag with him and added smoke for drama. He also documented the Nuremberg Trials and the Nazi atrocities in Ukraine, particularly in Kerch, where he photographed the victims of mass shootings. His works are not only art, but also testimonies that reveal the horrors of war through the prism of Jewish fate.
Anti-Semitism in the USSR cut his career short twice, in 1948 and the 1970s, but after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Chaldei finally gained worldwide recognition. His legacy is preserved in museums and reminds us of the power of photography as a weapon of truth.
Roman Vyshniak: Guardian of the vanishing world
Roman Vyshniak (1897-1990), although born in the Russian Empire (now Belarus), is closely associated with Ukraine through his work in Jewish communities in Eastern Europe, particularly in Podillia and Galicia. Vyshniak was an ethnographer and photographer who documented the life of shtetls, small Jewish towns that were later destroyed by the Holocaust, on behalf of the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee between 1935 and 1941.
His black and white photographs are a portal to a world that no longer exists. Children in heder, artisans at work, old synagogues and Sabbath prayers – Vyshniak captured everyday life and spirituality with incredible tenderness. In Ukraine, he photographed communities in towns such as Mukachevo and Khust, where Jewish life was bustling before the arrival of the Nazis. Most of his archive (over 2000 negatives) survived when he emigrated to the United States in 1940. His book A Vanished World (1983) has become a classic, and his work a monument to a vanished culture.
Boris Mikhailov: The rebel from Kharkiv
Boris Mikhailov (b. 1938) is a living classicist born in Kharkiv to a Jewish family. He was the founder of the Kharkiv School of Photography, which in the 1970s challenged Soviet censorship. Mikhailov started out as an engineer, but his passion for photography grew into an art form that shocked and inspired. His series Rural Affairs (1968-1971) shows the naked truth about life in the USSR – unvarnished, with sarcasm and humour.
During the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mikhailov created Case History (1997-1998), which depicted the homeless, alcoholics and chaos of post-Soviet Ukraine. These images are not just a document, but a cry for humanity in times of decline. Today, his work is exhibited at the Pompidou Centre and Tate Modern, and he remains a symbol of non-conformism.
Maxim Levin: A hero with a lens
Maksym Levin (1981-2022) was a Ukrainian photojournalist of Jewish origin whose life was tragically cut short during the Russian invasion. Born in the Kyiv region, he documented key events in Ukraine’s modern history: The Revolution of Dignity, the war in Donbas and the full-scale invasion of 2022. His photographs from Mariupol, including a bombed-out maternity hospital, have been shared around the world and have become evidence of Russian crimes.
Levin died on 13 March 2022 in a forest near Kyiv, where he had gone with a soldier to find his drone with footage of Russian positions. His death is a loss for Ukraine and for global journalism, but his legacy lives on in the photographs that scream the truth.
Alfred Fedetsky: A pioneer from Zhytomyr
Alfred Fedetsky (1857-1902), a native of Zhytomyr, is considered one of the first photographers and filmmakers in Ukraine. Born into a Polish-Jewish family, he opened a photographic studio in Kharkiv in the 1880s and became famous for his portraits and landscapes. Fedetsky also pioneered colour photography and made the first films in Ukraine, including View of Kharkiv (1896).
His works won awards at international exhibitions, and his studio was a centre of creativity. Although many of his archives have been lost, Fedetsky laid the foundation for Ukrainian photography.
Sources of inspiration and tragedy
These photographers are just the tip of the iceberg. Ukraine has given the world dozens of talents of Jewish origin who have recorded history through the prism of their own destinies. They are united not only by their skill but also by their struggle: against anti-Semitism, censorship, and war. Chaldei saw the atrocities of the Nazis, Vyshniak preserved the memory of the shtetls, Mikhailov challenged the system, Levin gave his life for the truth, and Fedetsky paved the way for his successors.
Their works are not just pictures, but voices that tell of ups and downs, joy and pain. They remind us that photography is an art that can stop time and give testimony when words are powerless.
Author: Katerina Bogdanenko
