My Secret Camera

This striking book is based around a series of black and white photographs, taken secretly by Mendel Grossman, a young Jew imprisoned in the Lodz Ghetto during World War II. They include haunting scenes of ghetto life - a woman scrubbing the streets with a tiny brush and bowl, a boy feeding his sister and a procession of Jews leaving the Ghetto, never to return. Accompanied by a simple, first person text, it creates a powerful memoir of the Holocaust, rendered all the more moving because of the circumstances in which the photographs were taken and the fate of the young photographer (who died in a prison camp). Perhaps the best compliment that can be paid however, is that, among the horror and inhumanity, the photographs tell another story, of human dignity and strength of spirit - an inspiring tale indeed.