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.

Megathreads and spaces to hang out:

reminders:

  • 💚 You nerds can join specific comms to see posts about all sorts of topics
  • 💙 Hexbear’s algorithm prioritizes comments over upbears
  • 💜 Sorting by new you nerd
  • 🌈 If you ever want to make your own megathread, you can reserve a spot here nerd
  • 🐶 Join the unofficial Hexbear-adjacent Mastodon instance toots.matapacos.dog

Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):

Aid:

Theory:

  • hexaflexagonbear [he/him]
    ·
    4 days ago

    I was naively expecting the comments to be more balanced lol. Like it’s obviously asking too much of overworked delivery drivers (esp during holiday season ffs) to never block a bike lane. It’s also not that unreasonable for someone on a bike to cut across the street or sidewalk for that short of a distance. Although, I’d love if Amazon or whatever contractor got anonymized citations for these, that way they face consequences for overworking their drivers but couldn’t link it directly to individuals to punish them. But that seems impossible to implement.

      • hexaflexagonbear [he/him]
        ·
        4 days ago

        Yeah, that seems like it’s probably a common occurrence. I feel like if someone lives on a busy street with bike lanes they should have the sense to just use a drop off location that’s almost definitely walking distance from them. Like idk why that discussion didn’t point out that people who think their deodorant should get a courier to their house had other options.

        • AntiOutsideAktion [he/him]
          ·
          4 days ago

          I think I mentioned it in there somewhere but I certainly did center the whole 'wearing down my body' part

          I should have mentioned that they were asking me to pop out the side of my van blind into a bike lane