Picture: from collection of Georgy Shepelev
Russian historian Georgy Shepelev residing in Paris collects pictures made during the Great Patriotic War. His unique collection of 5000 pictures shows villages burnt down by the Fascists, shots of the Jewish ghettos, imprinted moments of sorrowful lives in concentration camps. Georgy teaches Russian and other subjects in National Institute of Oriental languages and civilizations, but he treats search of ties between generations as a lifetime project, RIA Novosti reports.
Georgy says at the Day of Memory and Sorrow: “question of memory is not a question for one day; history needs to be collected bit by bit. Historian has been investigating pictures since 2005. He learnt from a collector he knew that the Germans made fun taking pictures of the events at war. Some of them were bad at dealing with cameras. The German soldiers and officers made shots dreaming of setting up their own victorious collection of pictures when the war is over. However, these pictures turned into evidence of Fascist military crimes.
The pictures faded with time show burning houses, bodies of soldiers, lying in columns by roads, a hung teenager. More than a hundred of pictures are connected to Holocaust. At this, there are plots where the families of Jews are all together, smiling at the thresholds of their houses, and if you turn up the page, you will see their distorted bodies from the concentration camp.
The historian is trying to figure out where these pictures were made and visit those places. He talks to the locals showing them the pictures. Sometimes he finds these places.
Georgy Shepelev organized photo exhibitions in Paris, Moscow and Minsk, all his expositions bearing the same name - Beyond that Side. Beyond that side of life, epoch, war.
Russkiy Mir
