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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  • Wheaties [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    21 days ago

    it’s funny being a US citizen who’s also mildly impressed by Deng Xiaoping

    cus like

    it’s really impressive how he played the structural intensives of the market to China’s advantage in a way that the US really has no way of coping with, let alone combating

    but also, as someone who lives here and thinks about socialism a lot, what am I supposed to do with this insight? Like, we as the United States should build our productive capacity by going to the Untied States and… asking… them… to… invest… in our… manufacturing capacity… oh dear

    • GalaxyBrain [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      21 days ago

      You can’t build socialism with Chinese characteristics in America. Dengism was also seemingly liberalizing the economy right when neo liberalism was starting to outsource and suddenly China was an amazing investment, do thst long enough to pump things up and then close the gate. And it’s worked but China was a communist country already, so there’s that and America is in a very different situation right now than China in the 70s. I don’t think there’s much dentist theory that can be applied to a post industrial economy. Classico Marxist lenninism more or less is the way to go in an already industrialized place with some modernizing for the current time and place. That leaves some major holes for sure, and we’re trying to fill em, but an effective revolution in America is borderline impossible and change will come from elsewhere. Try to be in the best position for that change and try yo help it along

      • Wheaties [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        21 days ago

        yeah, I agree with all of this, although i’m still not sure what that best position is for where i’m at

        it’s just funny to harp on that specific contradiction

      • CommunistBear [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        21 days ago

        in an already industrialized place

        What I’ve always been curious about is how that interacts in a place such as the US which is to some extent a post-industrial place. Yes, industry still exists to some extent but the massive amounts of de-industrialization surely have changed things in some way

    • Mokey2 [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      21 days ago

      I truly believe everything the US gov is doing is to get people to accept low wages and to bring back manufacturing ironically. But only so capitalize can make more money, who cares about the people who live here.