Abraham Pisarek

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Abraham Pisarek (born December 24, 1901 in Przedbórz near Łódź , Russian Empire , † April 24, 1983 in West Berlin ) was a German photographer .

life and work

Abraham Pisarek was born the son of the Jewish merchant Berek Pisarek and his wife Sura in Russian Poland . In Łódź he attended religious and middle school. In 1918/1919 he moved to Germany and worked there in a factory in Herne . In 1924 Pisarek left Germany for Palestine as a Chaluz (German: pioneer ) and worked there, among other things, as a stonemason. Four years later, after a short stay in France, he returned to Germany and settled in Berlin-Reinickendorf. Here he completed his photographic training and has since worked as a photographer for picture publishers and Berlin theater life. His pictures were published in the Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeitung and in the Jewish press. In 1929 he joined the Reich Association of the German Press . Pisarek's contacts with the KPD resulted in a collaboration with John Heartfield . He also became a member of the Berlin-North workers' photography group. As a friend of Max Liebermann , he frequented the circles of important artists and writers of the Weimar Republic .

Since Pisarek was officially banned from working after the National Socialists ' seizure of power in 1933, he was only allowed to work for the Jewish community. From then on he worked as a photographer for the five Jewish newspapers that existed until 1941, as well as for the Berlin Jewish Cultural Association (where he photographed the pianist Grete Sultan, among others ). In 1935 he took the only photos of Max Liebermann's funeral. Pisarek participated in illegal, anti-fascist activities, which led to arrests and summons to the Gestapo several times . In 1936 he, his non-Jewish wife Gerda and their two children Georg and Ruth were expelled from the Reinickendorfer apartment. They moved to Oranienburger Strasse in Berlin-Mitte. In May 1944 this apartment burned out as a result of an air raid .

With the final dissolution of all Jewish organizations in Germany in 1941, Pisarek became unemployed. He had to do forced labor , including as an interpreter for Polish and Soviet forced laborers. An emigration to the USA failed. He survived the Nazi regime thanks to the Rosenstrasse protests .

Pisarek's photograph from post-war Berlin, 1945

After the war he worked as an interpreter for the Soviet military administration in Berlin. He also resumed his photo reporter activity and in this way documented the “anti-fascist-democratic upheaval” in the Soviet occupation zone and the establishment of the GDR as well as its first years of development. The series of photos of Otto Grotewohl's and Wilhelm Pieck's handshake at the SED's unification congress in 1946 is one of his most famous photos. Numerous artist portraits, for example of Helene Weigel , Thomas Mann and Hanns Eisler , were also created during this time. Since the end of the 1950s Pisarek turned almost exclusively to theater photography. Abraham Pisarek died in West Berlin in 1983.

His photographic work is part of several archives, such as the Deutsche Fotothek , the theater collections of the Stadtmuseum Berlin Foundation, the Archive Foundation of the Academy of Arts , the picture agencies akg-images and ullstein bild, and the Preußischer Kulturbesitz (bpk) picture archive.

literature

  • Inge Unikower: Search for the promised land Literary version of the life story of AP DDR-Verlag der Nation. 1978.
  • Nicola Gallina (Ed.): Guide through Jewish Berlin . Nicolaische Verlagbuchhandlung. Berlin. 1987.
  • Hans J.Reichardt: Out of the rubble . State Archives Berlin. Transit book publisher. 1987.
  • Hazel Rosenstrauch (Ed.): Neighbors became Jews . Transit publishing house. Berlin. 1988.
  • Fritz Schulleri: Berlin childhood 50 years ago, photographs by Fritz Eschen and Abraham Pisarek . Wartenberg Publishing House. 2002.
  • Hans-Michael Koetzle: Lexicon of Photographers 1900 to today . Droemersche Publishing House. Th.Knaur. 2003.
  • Les juifs à Berlin photographs by Abraham Pisarek 1933–1941 . Texts by Dominique Bourel. Biro editor. Paris. 2010.
  • Jewish life in Berlin 1933–1941 . Photographs by Abraham Pisarek with an essay by Joachim Schlör. Edition Braus. Berlin. 2012.

multimedia

  • Frontier workers. The photographer Abraham Pisarek . DVD. Cine Impuls KG Laabs and Partners. A film by Walter Brun. Berlin. 1991.
  • Gone - Beyond Recall . Bear Family Records. Hambergen. 2001.

Web links

Commons : Photos by Abraham Pisarek  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Theater collection of the Stadtmuseum Berlin Foundation ( Memento from September 15, 2010 in the Internet Archive ); accessed: October 27, 2009
  2. ^ Foundation Archive of the Academy of Arts ( Memento from October 25, 2007 in the Internet Archive ); accessed: February 27, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Pisarek, Abraham
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Jewish photographer
DATE OF BIRTH December 24, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Przedbórz
DATE OF DEATH April 24, 1983
Place of death West Berlin