A Birthday Trip in Hell is comprised of the photographs that Heinz
Jost took while wandering through the ghetto on his day off, which also happened to be his
birthday. Jost found the experience so disturbing that not until 1980 did he reveal the existence of
the photographs, having hidden them even from his wife and family. Stern gave the photographs to
Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial and museum, where curators selected the images
for this exhibition, which was originally circulated throughout the United States by the Smithsonian
Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.
Jost’s photographs are grouped thematically: street life, beggars, children, burial. Passages from
original ghetto diaries provide historical context and complement the photographs. |
