Discover the exhibition
«Julia Pirotte, photographer and resistant»
#expojuliapirotte
Thursday 09 March 2023Thursday 16 November 2023
On the occasion of International Women’s Day, the Shoah Memorial is pleased to present its new exhibition "Julia Pirotte, photographer and resistance fighter".
Julia Pirotte (1907-2000), was born in Konskowola in Poland, into a poor Jewish family. Arrested at 17 for her involvement in the communist youth, she spends four years in prison. In 1934, she fled Poland helped by the International Red Aid. Arrived in Belgium, she married the worker and trade unionist Jean Pirotte, and met the future resistance fighter Suzanne Spaak. Thanks to the latter, she undertakes photography studies and begins a career as a photojournalist.
In May 1940, following the invasion of Belgium by Germany, she takes the path of exodus. She settles in Marseille where she surveys the region for the local press.
His reports show the precarious living conditions of the inhabitants of the Old Port, the lives of the Jewish women and children of the Bompard camp, the maquis of the resistance. Resistance that she joins very early with her sister Mindla Diament. Liaison agent for the FTP-MOI, she transports tracts and weapons and she makes fake papers. On August 21, 1944, present alongside the insurgents, she photographed the Liberation of Marseille.
After the war, she joined Poland. There she takes a double look: a country where anti-Semitism is not dead, but in reconstruction. She stopped her career at the end of the 1960s. From the 1980s, his photographs are presented in numerous exhibitions in Arles, New York, Charleroi, Paris, Warsaw.
Discover the dedicated site of the exhibition
General Commissariat: Caroline François, in charge of exhibitions, and Bruna Lo Biundo, independent researcher
Design: Estelle Martin.
Photo: Julia Pirotte, self-portrait, Marseille, 1942. © Museum of Photography, Charleroi
