Leon Balk's Lithuanian Photographs

LEON BALK'S LITHUANIAN PHOTOGRAPHS

The only professional Jewish photographer living and working in Klaipėda throughout the entire interwar period, Leon Balk must have taken thousands of photographs in the city, and yet, in Lithuania at least, only seven of his original photographic prints are known to survive in the country’s museums. Outside Lithuania, not least in Israel, where a great many of the photographer’s subjects emigrated soon after their pictures had been taken, many hundreds clearly must survive, both in the country's museums and in private homes. The small selection of photographs below were gathered together over a couple of days from the websites of the Ghetto Fighters’ House and Yad Vashem in Israel, the Jews in East Prussia project and The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Leon Balk's neglected and for the most part undocumented Lithuanian photographs and the lives they represent are fascinating and immensely valuable historical documents.

Photograph 1

Secretariat of the kibbutzim and Bema'ale Memel branches on the occasion of the emigration of the union envoy (from Hershek?) and Secretariat member, Yehuda. August 18, 1934.

Photograph 2

Before Chaia and Sheine's emigration. ‘Sahara Desert’ room, Memel. October 10, 1934.

Photograph 3

For Gesia and Mordechai Zarness' journey. Kibbutz Bema'ale, Memel. October 25, 1934.

Photograph 4

Group from Dumpen. The first emigrants of the year.

Photograph 5

Sick room/infirmary. Kibbutz Bema'ale, Memel. October 28, 1937.

Photograph 6

Flax workers/trainees at the City Kibbutz Hachshara, Memel. June 12, 1934.

Photographs 7 & 8

Both of the above photographs are believed to have been taken by Leon Balk. Although neither bears the photographer’s stamp, there are several clues within the images themselves that strongly suggest both photographs were the work of the photographer, including identical background features in Photograph 4 and Photograph 7 (above ↑), and what appear to be identical windows in Photograph 7 and Photograph 8. The portrait on the right is of the printing house owner Aron Puhn (1891-1941), who was famously photographed fleeing Klaipėda with his wife and two young children in April 1939.

Photograph 9

One of a collection of family photographs from Klaipėda that were donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum by Libbey Sansanowicz, whose father, Eliezer Kaplan, was a student at the city’s Kibbutz Hachshara in the late 1930s, and who features in at least one Leon Balk photograph. Although still unconfirmed, the above portrait of two Jewish sisters, dated January 26, 1938 and known to have been taken in Klaipėda, is almost certainly the work of the photographer.

Photograph 10

Bessie Balk, Leon Balk's daughter from his first marriage to Minnie née Blumenthal. The (painted) flowers and mirror, which can also be seen in Photograph 4 and Photograph7, clearly show that the picture was taken in Leon's studio in Klaipėda. Photo courtesy of Martin Balk.

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