Over ninety photos documenting Poland’s defensive war against Nazi German forces in September 1939 can be viewed on the website of the University Library in Milwaukee.
They were taken by Harrison Forman (1904-1978), an adventurous journalist, photographer and explorer who arrived in Warsaw in late August of 1939 and, as one of the few Western journalists in the country at the time, was able to capture images of the city just a few days before World War II broke out, the Nazi invasion of Poland, the desperate efforts of the Polish military to defend the country, and the fleeing of the civilian population from the bombed villages and cities.
A selection of Forman’s photographs of the Nazi invasion in Poland appeared in the American press in 1939. Some are now published for the first time, as part of the extensive Harrison Forman Collection that was donated to the American Geographical Society Library in 1987 and is now at the University of Milwaukee. (mk/mmj)