“People Are My Topic”: The Julien Bryan Collection in Warsaw

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The Period of War and Occupation

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Sam Bryan

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IPN BU 2353

“Most important in the story of Warsaw besieged are not ruined buildings or guns or German bombers overhead. Most important in that story is what happened to the inhabitants of Warsaw. [...]” These words of American photojournalist Julien Bryan perfectly describe the character of his collection at IPN.

Women and children seek shelter under the arches of the Grand Theatre in Warsaw, ca. September 15, 1939

National Socialist German Workers Party congress in Nuremberg, 1937

Sandbagged windows of the Bristol Hotel on Krakowskie Przedmieście in Warsaw, September 1939 (hand-colored slide)

Julien Bryan at the barricade on Zygmuntowska Street (now a section of Solidarności Avenue) in Warsaw's Praga district, 7.IX.1939 (hand-colored slide)

Newlyweds in Warsaw, 1946

Twelve-year-old Kazimiera Kostewicz weeps over the body of her sister Anna, killed by German airmen near the intersection of Ostroroga and Wawrzyszewska streets in Warsaw, September 1939

Bryan's meeting with Kazimiera Mica, née Kostewicz, 1959

Sam Bryan at the opening of the exhibition "An American in Warsaw. The Capital in the Lens of Julien Bryan 1936-1974" at the History Meeting House in Warsaw, 19.XI.2010

Okruchy historii – czytaj i słuchaj

Wermacht and Schupo [Schutzpolizei] Units in Warsaw Documented in Photographs

Donated by: Wiesław Skiba

In 2010, IPN purchased a collection of unique photographs taken between 1939 and 1941 from Wiesław Skiba of Luxembourg. Part of the photographs show the Wermacht and Schutzpolizei units of Nazi Germany entering Warsaw.Others depict daily life under occupation from the perspective of the invaders.

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Martyrology of Poles in Volhynia [Wołyń] during World War II in the Light of a Letter from Brother Cyprian Lasoń

Donated by: Stanisław Kozak

The moving account of Brother Cyprian Lasoń of the Order of the Discalced Carmelites tells the story of a massacre of Poles from the Krzemieniec district of Volhynia by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army [UPA]. The monk depicts the tragic situation of people hidden in a monastery, whom only a miracle can save.

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‘Korab’ – A Brief Account

Donated by: Teodora Korab Żebryk

The life of Roman Korab-Żebryk – born in Vilnius, a soldier of the [Polish] Home Army and a historian of the Polish Underground State – would be enough to write more than one biographical novel and produce several gripping action movies. It is hard to believe that so much was experienced by just one person.

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