Empty house in a Ukrainian village
Description
- Creator
- Wienerberger, Alexander, 1891-1955, Photographer
- Media Type
- Image
- Text
- Item Types
- Photographs
- Photograph albums
- Description
- It is early spring. We see a small house, its roof still neatly thatched, but missing windows and a door, and clearly uninhabited. The photographer indicates that this empty house is only one of many in this unidentified village, now essentially "extinct” because of the overwhelming loss of life in the community.
In his memoir, Wienerberger recalls visiting a Ukrainian village in the spring. “Es war einfach graussig; mir fehlen dir Worte, um das Entsetzen, das sich dem Beschauer bot, zu schildern. Die Hälfte der Häuser war unbewohnt ...[und] Ratten, die bei hellichtem Tage die herumliegenden ausgemergelten Leichen benagten. Die wenigen Überlebenden hatten nicht mehr die Kraft, ihre Toten zu beerdigen.” [It was just gruesome; I have no words to describe the horror that presented itself to the beholder. Half of the houses were uninhabited…[and] rats in broad daylight gnawed the emaciated corpses lying around. The few survivors no longer had the strength to bury their dead.](Hart auf hart, p.185.)
- Notes
- Photo source: Wienerberger, Alexander. Die Hungertragödie in Südrussland 1933; also known as the Innitzer Album, 1934. p.23.
This is one of 25 photographs depicting life and death in and around Kharkiv during the Holodomor that the photographer put together in a small album with a handwritten title: Die Hungertragödie in Südrussland 1933 [The Tragedy of Famine in South Russia 1933.] He presented the album to the Roman Catholic Cardinal Theodor Innitzer of Vienna in 1934 as an expression of appreciation for the Cardinal’s efforts in trying to organize an international campaign to assist the victims of starvation in 1933. The album is housed in the collections of the Diözesanarchiv, Vienna, Austria.
For related photo, essays, and a listing of originals and versions published through 1939 with their captions, see menus at right.
- Inscriptions
- Handwritten caption in album: “Ausgestorbenes Dorf.” [Deserted village.]
- Date of Original
- spring-summer 1933
- Image Dimensions
-
Image Width: 10.8cm
Image Height: 7.9cm
- Subject(s)
- Local identifier
- PD24
- Collection
- Alexander Wienerberger: Innitzer album
- Language of Item
- German
- Geographic Coverage
-
-
Ukraine
Latitude: 49 Longitude: 32
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- Copyright Statement
- Protected by copyright: Uses other than research or private study require the permission of the rightsholder(s). Responsibility for obtaining permissions and for any use rests exclusively with the user.
- Copyright Holder
- Samara Pearce https://www.samarapearce.com/
- Recommended Citation
- Wienerberger, Alexander. 1933. “Ausgestorbenes Dorf.” Die Hungertragödie in Südrussland 1933. Vienna: Diözesanarchiv der Erzdiözese, [1934]. p.23. Retrieved from: http://vitacollections.ca/HREC-holodomorphotodirectory/3636394/data
- Location of Original
- Diözesanarchiv - Bibliothek, Vienna, Austria. Please contact this archive for official reproductions.
- Terms of Use
- Rightsholder requests that the name of the photographer, Alexander Wienerberger, accompany each authentic reproduction of his work.
- Reproduction Notes
- Reproduced with the permission of rightsholder Samara Pearce and the Diözesanarchiv - Bibliothek, Vienna, Austria.
