Julien Bryan was an important US documentary filmmaker and photographer who captured the everyday life, work, and culture of individuals and communities in many countries around the globe. He filmed in Poland in the mid-1930s, capturing scenes of Jewish life. In 1937, during an extended trip to Nazi Germany, documented subjects ranging from German people at work and at play to evidence of the Nazis' anti-Jewish measures. Later, in September 1939, he was one of the few foreign photographers left in Warsaw following the German invasion of Poland.
Explore some of his film and photographs.
View of a bridge spanning a canal in Nuremberg. The houses and bridge are decorated with Nazi flags and banners. Photograph taken by Julien Bryan in Nuremberg, Germany, 1937.
Item View
An anti-Jewish sign posted on a street in Bavaria reads "Jews are not wanted here." Julien Bryan took this photograph while visiting Germany in 1937. Back in the United States, Bryan regularly gave lectures with accompanying motion pictures to convey the looming dangers he foresaw in Europe.
During one of these presentations in 1938, he said: "And then a sign like this. Along the Rhine you see these signs against the Jew everywhere, … all through central and southern Germany, saying simply and uniformly the same thing. Jews are not wanted here…. Out of my own curiosity because I am a reporter who is anxious to get both sides of the story – I talked further with these peasants and in a number of cases I asked the German people along the Rhine … how come these signs? Who put them up? They rather laughed about it all and not too pleasantly, and they denied having anything to do with it..."
Citizens would have viewed this sign in public every day. Think about which municipal officials might have had to approve the content of the sign and its display in a public area. Who might have created it and decided where to hang it? What does this indicate about the involvement of citizens and officials in public discrimination?
Item ViewIn the 1920s and 1930s, the German city of Nuremberg was host to massive and lavish rallies for the Nazi Party. This film footage, produced by Julien Bryan in 1937, shows saluting crowds in the Nuremberg stadium watching groups parade past Adolf Hitler.
Item View
Julien Bryan was an important US documentary filmmaker and photographer who captured the everyday life, work, and culture of individuals and communities in many countries around the globe.
Bryan was filming in western Europe in the summer of 1939. In the first week of September 1939, Bryan made his way to Warsaw just as all foreign reporters, diplomats, and Polish government officials were fleeing the capital in the wake of the German invasion. One of the few foreign photographers left in the city, he risked his life to record besieged Warsaw. This image shows him filming an anti-Nazi propaganda poster on a wall in Warsaw.
Item View
Julien Bryan was an important US documentary filmmaker and photographer who captured the everyday life, work, and culture of individuals and communities in many countries around the globe.
Bryan was filming in western Europe in the summer of 1939. In the first week of September 1939, Bryan made his way to Warsaw just as all foreign reporters, diplomats, and Polish government officials were fleeing the capital in the wake of the German invasion. One of the few foreign photographers left in the city, he risked his life to record besieged Warsaw. This image shows him filming during the German invasion of Warsaw in 1939.
Item ViewOn September 1, 1939, Julien Bryan was one of the last reporters holding citizenship of a non-belligerent nation remaining in Poland. His ten-minute film Siege records the horror and confusion of Warsaw during the German attack. Through actual footage taken during the siege, Bryan poignantly describes the frightening chain of events that ended in the capitulation of Warsaw and the occupation of Poland. During the early stages of the blitzkrieg, Polish military authorities commandeered civilians to dig ditches, set tank traps, and shore up fortifications. As the Polish soldiers retreated to the east, German troops encircled and laid siege to Warsaw.
Item View
Polish children wander through the ruins of Warsaw after a German bombing. Photographed by Julien Bryan in Warsaw, Poland, ca. 1939.
Item View
Members of a Polish family perform daily chores amidst the amidst the charred ruins of their home, destroyed during the German bombing of Warsaw. They have reassembled the remnants of their household furnishings outside. Photographed by Julien Bryan, circa 1939.
Item View
Father Wlodarczyk attempts to clean and repair a bombed-out church in the besieged city of Warsaw. Photographed by Julien Bryan, Warsaw, Poland, ca. 1939.
Item View
Following the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, Warsaw suffered heavy air attacks and artillery bombardment. German troops entered the city on September 29, shortly after its surrender. This photograph was taken by Julien Bryan, an American documentary filmmaker who captured the German bombardment and its impact on the Polish citizenry. Warsaw, Poland, ca. 1939.
Item View
A ten-year-old Polish girl, Kazimiera Mika, mourns the death of her older sister, who was killed in a field in Warsaw, Poland, during a German air raid. Photographed by US documentary filmmaker, Julien Bryan, on September 13, 1939.
Item View
Poles walk among the ruins of besieged Warsaw.
This photograph documenting war destruction was taken by Julien Bryan (1899-1974), a documentary filmmaker who filmed and photographed the everyday life and culture of individuals and communities in various countries around the globe.
Item View
Two of Julien Bryan's Nazi Germany 1937 contact print booklets of still photographs organized by camera roll. Bryan used these prints to select and crop images for publication or distribution and annotated the covers.
Item View
Julien Bryan stored his still photo negatives from Nazi Germany 1937 and Poland 1939 in these carefully marked metal canisters.
Item View
Many of Julien Bryan's original 35mm nitrate film rolls were actively deteriorating when the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum acquired the collection in 2003.
Item View
We would like to thank Crown Family Philanthropies, Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation, the Claims Conference, EVZ, and BMF for supporting the ongoing work to create content and resources for the Holocaust Encyclopedia. View the list of donor acknowledgement.
