People ask me how I use this camera to capture images that are exhibited all over the world (...). When I feel a heartbeat, I know it will be a good picture. – Julia Pirotte
Julia Pirotte (Golda Perla Diament) born on August 26, 1907, grew up in a poor Jewish family between Końskowola and Lublin, Poland. Her father was a miner. À 17 ans, she was arrested for her activism in the Polish Communist youth movement and spent four years in prison. In 1934, with help from the International Red Aid organization, she fled Poland to join her sister Mindla, a refugee in France.
En chemin, Julia fell hill and had to interrupt her journey in Belgium, where she took a job in an factory and married the trade unionist Jean Pirotte. In Brussels, she took night classes in journalism and photography. In 1938 and 1939, she began her photojournalism career with a study of Polish miners for a trade union magazine and a reportage in the Baltic countries for the Foto WARO press agency.
When Nazi Germany overran Belgium in May 1940, Julia fled south. With her comrades during the exodus, the young refugee settled in Marseille because of the factories there. She began working in an aircraft plant and as a photographer on a private beach. In 1942, she was hired as a photojournalist by local publications, including
Julia documented the dismal living conditions in the slums of the Old Port, the plight of Jewish women and children interned in the Bompard camp and the operations of the maquis. She and her sister Mindla joined the Resistance very early on. As agent liaison for the FTP-MOI group, she smuggled leaflets, weapons and forged documents. On August 21, 1944, she took part in the liberation of Marseille, documenting the event with her camera.
Julia Pirotte returned to Poland, where reconstruction was in full swing. Her brother Majer died in a gulag in the USSR and her sister Mindla was executed in Germany after her arrest for resistance. In 1946, she was one of the only photographers in Kielce just after the pogrom. Her report is a poignant testimony on antisemitism, which was still rife in the country of her birth. In the following months, she traveled with Polish miners being repatriated from France. In 1948, she covered the World Congress of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace in Wroclaw, making portraits of participants including Pablo Picasso, Irene Joliot-Curie and Aime Cesaire. At the same time, she co-founded and directed the Press Agency WAF.
In 1957, Julia went to Israel to experience life on a kibbutz. Back in Poland, she continued working for the Polish press, but at a much slower pace. In the 1980s, her photography began to gain recognition and was exhibited in many cities, including New York, Arles, Stockholm, Charleroi, Paris, Warsaw and Bratislava. On February 15, 1996, France awarded her the title of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. She died in Warsaw on July 25, 2000.
Suzanne SpaakAs a member of the Franco-Belgian section of the Orchestre rouge intelligence network and a leader of the National Movement Against Racism (MNCR), Suzanne Spaak organized and coordinated efforts to rescue Jewish children. She was arrested by the Gestapo on November 8, imprisoned and tortured in Fresnes and shot on August 12, 1944. Suzanne Spaak played a decisive role in Julia Pirotte’s career as a photographer and gave her the Leica camera.
Mindla Diament
Julia’s sister, who had taken refuge in France before the war, Mindla Diament joined the FTP-MOI Resistance network, becoming an agent liaison. Arrested at a checkpoint in Chalon-sur-Saône, she was jailed in Dijon and the Sante prison in Paris before being deported to Germany on 3 December 1942. A court in Breslau sentenced her to death and she was guillotined on 24 August 1944.
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