CAMERA OBSCURA

HIDDEN TREASURES

Of the estimated 10 million Lithuanian Jewish photographs that existed in Lithuania on the eve of the Second World War, approximately eight million had been either completely destroyed or otherwise displaced to destinations as yet unknown by the time the conflict officially ended on September 2, 1945. With the help and support of a growing number of museums and memory institutions around the world, Camera Obscura is currently engaged in the painstakingly slow process of locating and subsequently documenting the whereabouts and condition of the two million images that survived. As part of this enormously ambitious undertaking, in June 2025 the project plans to send out a specially designed questionnaire to approximately 200 institutions that are known to hold examples of these photographs among their collections, including the 127 listed below. 

AKMENĖ 

Akmenė Regional Museum

Established in 2007.

ALYTUS

Alytus Regional Museum

Founded during the interwar period as two different organisations that eventually merged in 1935, the Alytus Regional Museum holds just over 73,000 individual artefacts, including over 13,000 photographic prints and negatives, of which a large percentage are believed to date from the interwar period. Photographs by Isaakas Abramavičius seem to be particularly well represented.

Kaunas Regional State Archives in Alytus

Established in 1944.

ANYKŠČIAI

A. Baranauskas & A. Vienuolis-Žukauskas Memorial Museum

Founded in 1927. Holds a small handful of rare prints by I. Mulca/Mulcas, one of the town's first photographers. Also features an interesting page on its website dedicated to the subject of Jewish life and culture in Anykščiai before the Second World War.

BABTAI

Babtai Regional Museum

Branch of the Kaunas District Museum (↓).

BAD AROLSEN

Arolsen Archives

An internationally governed centre specialising in information and original documentation relating to every aspect of Nazi persecution between 1933 and 1945, the Arolsen Archives holds over 30 million documents, including many photographs hidden among them. Holds information concerning the fate of several pre-Second World War Lithuanian Jewish photographers. 

BALTIMORE

Jewish Museum of Maryland

Holds several photographic prints by Harry Rivkind, aka the pre-Second World War Šiauliai photographer and Holocaust survivor Giršas Rivkindas.

GIRŠAS RIVKINDAS

Coming soon.

BERLIN

Jews in East Prussia

Check the website for more inforation.

Jewish Museum Berlin

Not much is currently known about the museum's extensive collection of historical photographs, although a quick online search uncovered some extremely rare photographs taken by the German Jewish artist Jakob Steinhardt when he was stationed in Lithuania during the First World War. See the Raseiniai entry for Chaim Tellem in The Invisible Magicians for more information. 

THE CHESS PLAYERS

Coming soon.

BIRŠTONAS 

Birštonas Museum

Preserves what it calls the 'cultural values of the Birštonas region'.

BIRŽAI 

Biržai Regional Museum

Founded in 1928. Extensively looted by the Red Army in 1944. Today, the institution holds many original photographs by several of the town's former Jewish photographers. 

FRIEDA & BORUCH 

Coming soon.

BROOKLINE

Jewish Women's Archive

No information currently available.

BUTRIMONYS

Butrimonys Museum

Small museum inside the local high school. 

CAPE TOWN

South African Jewish Museum

The museum's online archives feature several hundred Jewish family photographs from pre-Second World War Lithuania.

DRUSKININKAI

Druskininkai City Museum

Founded in 1996. Due to Druskininkai's complicated past, many historical photographs from the city are today held among the collections of several institutions in Poland. 

DUBLIN

Irish Jewish Museum

No information currently available.

DURBAN

Durban Holocaust & Genocide Centre

No information currently available.

FLOSSENBÜRG 

Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial

Features displays of photographs from Lithuanian Jewish families that were sent to the camp between 1941 and 1944.

GARGŽDAI 

Gargždai Regional Museum

Founded in 2005. Impressive permanent exhibition about Jewish life in the town before the Second World War. Known to hold many original Jewish photographs.

GLASGOW

Scottish Jewish Archives Centre

Housed inside Scotland’s first purpose-built synagogue that opened in 1881, the SJAC preserves a large and constantly growing collection of artefacts (including a wealth of historical photographs) relating to Jewish life and culture in the country from the 18th century onwards. There’s no searchable database, but the staff are very friendly and helpful. The building is located in the Garnethill area in Glasgow, where no less than three Jewish photographers moved with their families at the end of the 19th century. Charges for the SJAC's services often apply. Also home to the excellent Scottish Jewish Heritage Centre. 

AS YET UNTITLED

Coming soon.

HUDDERSFIELD

Holocaust Centre North

No information currently available.

IGNALINA

Ignalina Regional Museum

No information currently available.

JERUSALEM

Center for Jewish Art

Amazing online resource.

THE GROSS FAMILY POSTCARDS

Coming soon.

Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People

Part of the National Library of Israel (↓).

National Library of Israel

Has its own dedicated photo archive, although many photographs are also held in other departments and collections. See also the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People (↑).

Yad Vashem

Massive collection of historical Jewish photographs.

JOHANNESBURG 

Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre

No information currently available.

JONAVA

Jonava Regional Museum

Founded in 1989, the museum has carried out a large amount of research into the life and culture of the town’s former Jewish population.

JONIŠKIS 

Joniškis Museum of History & Culture

Founded in 1989. Also responsible for the so-called Joniškis White & Red Synagogue Complex.

JURBARKAS

Jurbarkas Regional Museum

Founded in 1991.

KAIŠIADORYS 

Kaišiadorys Museum

Founded in 1998. A museum without a public space. In 2016, its then director published a photo book about pre-Second World War Žiežmariai. The museum is also known to researched Jewish life and culture in pre-Second World War Rumšiškės/Rumshishok. See also Rumšiškės (↓).

KALVARIJA

Kalvarija Regional Museum

Combined museum and tourist information centre. Doesn’t have any original photographs, although it does feature a permanent exhibition dedicated to local Jewish history, which includes several copies of original photographs from other sources.

KAUNAS

Kaunas City Museum

Several different branches. Known to hold a lot of Jewish photograps dating from before the Second World War. Its first director was Eduardas Volteris (1856-1941), a Latvian ethnographer with German roots.

Kaunas Ninth Fort Museum

Many family photographs are known to have been found in the pockets of the thousands of Jewish victims who were murdered at the site.

AS YET UNTITLED

Coming soon.

Kaunas Regional State Archives

Holds an extraordinary collection of thousands of Jewish photographs from before the Second World War, all of them attached to documents, and almost none of them documented and/or available online. A separate project in itself. 

THE CANTONIST LISTS

Coming soon.

Kipras & Mikas Petrauskas House Museum

Along with his wife, Elena Žalinkevičaitė-Petrauskienė (1900-1986), who was almost certainly the main hero of the story, in 1999 the Lithuanian opera singer Kipras Petrauskas (1885-1968) was posthumously recognised as Righteous Among the Nations for rescuing Dana Pomeranz, the six-month-old daughter of the well-known interwar Jewish violinist, Daniel Pomeranz, who was hidden in Berlin during the war, and who was eventually reunited with her parents. The museum, which is inside the large house that Kipras and his composer brother, Mikas (1873-1937), built and lived in together, features an extensive family archive, including several original family photo albums.

Lithuanian Education History Museum

Known to have been working as far back as 1931. Founded by Vincas Ruzgas (1890-1972). Holds an original photo album from a Jewish Children’s Home that was located inside the former Bikur Cholim Jewish hospital in Kaunas. The museum also possesses an original photographic print of students and teachers from the interwar Jewish high school in Kaunas, were all of the lessons were taught in the Lithuanian language.

Maironis Museum of Lithuanian Literature

Founded in 1936. Dedicated to the memory of the eponymous Catholic priest and poet, and not the most obvious place to find Lithuanian Jewish photographs. It does however hold them in droves, including the only currently known surviving photographic print from the Pakruojis photography studio of A. Skoka.

M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art

Founded on December 14, 1921 after Kaunas became Lithuania’s temporary capital. Lithuania’s leading cultural institution during the interwar period.

Sugihara House

No information currently available.

Vytautas the Great War Museum

Founded in 1921.

KAZLŲ RŪDA 

Kazlų Rūda Regional Museum

Kazlų Rūda features among one of the few locations in Lithuania where no accurate record of what happened in the town during the Holocaust exists. Although it's known that the town's interwar photography studio was run by a Lithuanian Jew, no information on the subject has yet been found. More information to follow.

KĖDAINIAI 

Kėdainiai Regional Museum

The Kėdainiai Regional Museum also operates the so-called Multicultural Centre, which is located inside one of the city's three surviving former synagogues. The museum's Lithuanian director has tirelessly and single-handedly worked to preserve Kėdainiai's rich Jewish history and culture for the last three decades. The museum's collection features a few original Lithuanian Jewish photographs. 

PRIVATE COLLECTIONS

Coming soon.

KELMĖ 

Kelmė Regional Museum

Housed inside a former manor house that was emptied of its treasures during the Soviet nationalisation programme in 1940/1941. 

KLAIPĖDA

Ieva Simonaitytė Public Library

Home to the rare and fascinating AdM Archive.

Lithuania Minor History Museum

Claims to hold just two original Jewish photographs. Also holds other documents of interest, plus a large number of photographic glass plate negatives from the interwar period that were taken by an unknown photographer. 

Klaipėda Regional State Archives

Holds two albums of pre- Second World War postcards, including a few featuring historical scenes from the city's main market, where the Virbalis-born photographer Jechiel Moses Sternstein (see The Invisible Magicians) lived before he emigrated to Scotland at the end of the 19th century.

KOBLENZ

Bundesarchiv

Holds approximately 12 mllion photographs. 

KRETINGA

Kretinga Museum

No information currently available.

KUPIŠKIS

Kupiškis Ethnographic Museum

Founded in 1943. 

LAZDIJAI

Lazdijai Regional Museum

Founded in 1995. Known to hold at least one original photographic print by the former local Jewish photographer Ch. Markas. 

LOHAMEI HAGETA'OT

Ghetto Fighters’ House

Holds an extensive collection of digitised Jewish photographs from pre-Second World War Lithuania.

LONDON

Wiener Holocaust Library

Known to hold one original pre-Second World War Lithuanian Jewish photograph.

World ORT

Headquarters in Geneva. Administrative Office (and some archives) in London. The website holds a small collection of historical photographs from Lithuania before the Second World War.

MANCHESTER

Manchester Jewish Museum

No information currently available.

MARIJAMPOLĖ

Marijampolė Regional Museum

Holds a small collection of original (and almost certainly unique) photographic prints.

MAŽEIKIAI 

Mažeikiai Museum

Founded in 1928.

MELBOURNE

Jewish Museum of Australia

Founded in 1977.

Melbourne Holocaust Museum

Has a small number of photographs online.

MERKINĖ 

Merkinė Regional Museum

Known to have been active in local Jewish memory projects. No indication of what photographs it holds among it collection.

MOLĖTAI 

Molėtai Regional Museum

Founded in 1991. Among its 36,000 or so exhibits are an unknown number of unidentified photographic negatives from the interwar period.

MONTREAL

Jewish Public Library

Eva Raby, one of the library's founders and former directors, is the niece of Annushka Varšavskienė, the original inspiration behind the Camera Obscura project. Excellent resources, including archive material (with photographs) donated by Jewish families who emigrated to Canada from Lithuania.

AS YET UNTITLED

Coming soon.

MUNICH

Munich City Archives

Miscellaneous connections with Kaunas. Has relevant photographs.

NEW YORK

JDC Archives

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee was founded in 1914. Its archives hold a vast amount of material from over 90 countries around the world, including more than 70,000 digitised photographs. Their images from Lithuania include pictures taken during their various humanitarian/reconstruction projects in Kudirkos Naumiestis, Merkinė, Panevėžys, Vilkaviškis and elsewhere from the end of the First World War onwards. 

A ROOF OVER JOSEPH'S HEAD

Coming soon.

YIVO

Founded in Wilno/Vilnius in 1925. The largest and most comprehensive collection of materials on Eastern European Jewish life and culture in the world. Over 20 million objects, including approximately a quarter of a million photographs spread throughout multiple collections.

AS YET UNTITLED

Coming soon.

NIDA

Neringa Museum

Four branches. 

PALANGA

Amber Museum

The 1931 Visa Lietuva Lithuanian business directory lists eight amber-related businesses in Palanga, all of them owned by Jews. Rather than reflecting the fact, the hundreds of displays inside the city's Amber Museum do a remarkably good job of creating the impression that no Jews ever lived in the town at all. Branch of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art.

PANEVĖŽYS

Panevėžys County Public Library

Holds the Irena Moigytė Collection/Irenos Moigytės Fondas. Ms. Moigytė was a non-Jewish teacher who died in 2001, and who donated her family archive to the library, including a large collection of original photographic prints, many of them from the studio of Leiba Slonimskis.

Panevėžys Regional Museum

Founded in 1908. Opened its doors to the public for the first time in 1925. Today the museum holds approximately 30,000 photographs in all formats and from a wide range of photographers, the oldest dating back to 1863. Believed to hold a considerable number of glass plate negatives of currently unknown origin and provenance.  

Šiauliai Regional State Archives in Panevėžys

No information currently available.

PASVALYS

Pasvalys Regional Museum

Founded in 1991. Ran a project several years ago encouraging the local population to bring old photographs to the museum. 

PLUNGĖ 

Samogitian Art Museum

Founded in 1994. Holds original photographic prints by Mendelis Movša Berkovičius and Leiba Turgel. 

PRIENAI

Prienai Regional Museum

Founded in 1994.

RASEINIAI

Raseiniai Regional & History Museum

No information currently available.

RAUDONDVARIS

Kaunas District Museum

Established in 2013. Holds what appears to be a substantial number of historical photographs among its collection. 

RICHMOND

Virginia Holocaust Museum

One of the museum’s original founders was a Holocaust survivor from Kaunas.

RIETAVAS

Rietavas Oginski Cultural History Museum

Founded in 1995.

RIGA

Jews in Latvia Museum

No information currently available.

AS YET UNTITLED 

Coming soon.

ROKIŠKIS 

Rokiškis Regional Museum

No information currently available.

AS YET UNTITLED

Coming soon.

RUMŠIŠKĖS

Lithuanian Ethnographic Museum

The institution has a good library and archive containing many historical photographs that have never been properly inventorised. See also Kaišiadorys (↑).

ŠAKIAI 

Zanavykai Museum

Coming soon.

ŠEDUVA

Lost Shtetl Museum

No information currently available.

ŠIAULĖNAI 

Šiaulėnai Regional Museum

No information currently available.

ŠIAULIAI

Aušros Museum

Founded in 1923. The museum’s first director, Česlovas Liutikas (1909-1984), was responsible for the museum's multiple ethnographic expeditions during the 1930s, including the miscellaneous known visits to synagogues in the region. The main branch of the museum is housed inside a luxurious Art Nouveau villa that was formerly owned by the Lithuanian Jewish industrialist, Chaim Frenkel, whose wife, Dora/Dvora, was murdered in the Šiauliai Ghetto.

Public Pharmacy Museum

No information currently known. 

Šiauliai County Public Library

No information currently known. 

Šiauliai Photography Museum

A branch of the Aušros Museum (↑). 

Šiauliai Regional State Archives

The Šiauliai Regional State Archives preserve a number of interesting and occasionally enlightening documents, including Soviet tax and nationalisation lists from 1940 and 1941 that feature information about Jewish-owned photography studios in the city. It's assumed that other regional archives around the country hold similar documents. 

ŠILALĖ

Šilalė Museum

Founded in 1962.

ŠILUTĖ

Hugo Scheu Museum

The museum's collection apparently includes just under 4,000 unspecified photographs and postcards, plus a further 5,000 negatives from the local (non-Jewish) publisher and postcard producer, Adolf Stahl.

SKAUDVILĖ 

Skaudvilė Regional Museum

Branch of the Tauragė Regional Museum (↓).

SKUODAS

Skuodas Museum

Founded in 1991.

SUWAŁKI

State Archives in Suwałki

No information currently available.

ŠVĖKŠNA 

Švėkšna Exposition

Branch of the Hugo Scheu Museum in Šilutė (↑). 

ŠVENČIONYS

Nalšia Museum

No information currently available.

SYDNEY

Sydney Jewish Museum

Founded in 1992. Over 15,000 artefacts. Online search wasn't working when checked.

TAURAGĖ

Klaipėda Regional State Archives in Tauragė

Holds some original photographic prints from the studio of A, Katzef/Orel Kacevas.

Tauragė Regional Museum

Founded in 1990.

TEL AVIV

ANU Museum of the Jewish People

Huge archive of photographs, many of which have been digitised and are available online. 

TELŠIAI

Alka Museum of Samogitian History 

Founded in 1932 by Pranas Genys and a group of local intellectuals. Holds 427 original photographic glass plate negatives from the photography studio of the pre-Second World War Lithuanian Jewish photographer, Chaim Kaplansky, and his daughter, Feitska Kaplanskaitė-Taicienė.

THE KAPLANSKY NEGATIVES

Coming soon.

Klaipėda Regional State Archives in Telšiai

Holds a collection of historical photographs and postcards, including some wonderful historical studio portraits. 

TRAKAI

Trakai History Museum

Founded in 1948.

UKMERGĖ 

Ukmergė Regional Museum

Founded in 1944. Holds about 40 original pre-Second World War Lithuanian Jewish photographic prints among its collection, all of them stored in the general photo archive, i.e. the museum has no specific Jewish collection. Like all museums in Lithuania, the museum keeps a record of provenance/public donations etc. There are also other photographs in the archives that the staff suspect are of Jewish origin.

UTENA

Utena Regional Museum

Founded in 1929.

Vilnius Regional State Archives in Utena

No information currently available.

VABALNINKAS

Vabalninkas Museum

No information currently available.

VARNIAI

Samogitian Diocese Museum

Known to hold an original Jankelis Arnsonas photographic print among its collection, as well as another from the Modern photography studio in Kaunas. Branch of the Alka Museum of Samogitian History in Telšiai (↑).

VEISIEJAI

Veisiejai Regional Museum

No information currently available.

VILNIUS

Institute of Lithuanian Literature & Folklore

Among the many things the institution preserves in its archives is a rich and fascinating collection of studio portraits featuring many Lithuanian literary figures. Not surprisingly, a great deal of these photographs were made by Jewish studio photographers. 

AS YET UNTITLED

Coming soon.

Judaica Research Centre

Massive and still considerably unresearched/uncatalogued collections of photographs and identity documents feature among the institution’s incredible collection. Part of the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania (↓). 

AS YET UNTITLED

Coming soon.

Lithuanian Archives of Literature & Art

Holds some very interesting and important material.

Lithuanian Central State Archives

Holds close to half a million photographic prints and negatives dating from about 1860 onwards, and presumably knows quite a lot about the provenance of many of them. Everything is digitised, but regretably not shared with the public. Holds approximately 2,000 photographs in its dedicated Jewish Collections, as well as many other photographs of Lithuanian Jews on various identity (and other) documents., most of which haven't seen the light of day since they were made. 

Lithuanian Cultural Heritage Research Centre

Home to a large and mostly overlooked archive of original documents from the Soviet nationalisation programme, as well as others that are suspected of having been produced by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg. 

Lithuanian Museum of Theatre, Music & Cinema

No information currently available.

Lithuanian National Museum of Art 

Founded in 1933. Opened to the public as the Vilnius State Art Museum in April 1941. Made up of nine different branches in several different cities.

Lithuanian Special Archives

Many of the files the NKVD and KGB kept on individuals in Lithuania (including many Lithuanian Jews) include photographs inside them, including family photographs from before the Second World War.

Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania

Very few specific photographs, but literally millions of documents, magazines, books etc. with relevant and important photographs inside them.

National Museum of Lithuania

Officially founded in 1952, although its history goes back much further. In 1968, it absorbed museum valuables from the Vilnius Regional Hisotry Museum, which was founded in 1949 in place of the short-lived Jewish museum. Known to hold quite a few photographic prints and negatives of interest.

Vilna Gaon State Museum of Jewish History

An amazing collection of photographs. 

AS YET UNTITLED

Coming soon.

Vilnius County Public Library

No information currently available.

Vilnius Regional State Archives

No information currently available.

Wroblewski Library

A rich source of untapped material.

WARSAW

Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw

No information currently available.

Polish State Archives

No information currently available.

WASHINGTON

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Huge archive.

WINDSOR

The Royal Collection

Holds several surprising photographs by pre-Second World War Lithuanian Jewish photographers among its collection. 

ZARASAI

Zarasai Regional Museum

Founded in 1934. 

ŽEIMELIS

Pakruojis Regional Museum

Founded in 1959. Originally part of the Aušros Museum. Now attached to the local municipality in Pakruojis.

ŽEMAIČIŲ NAUMIESTIS 

Žemaičių Naumiestis Exposition

No information currently available.