United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The Power of Truth: 20 Years
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“Everyone would believe my pictures”:
The Legacy of Julien Bryan

Julien Bryan stored his still photo negatives from Nazi Germany 1937 and Poland 1939 in these carefully marked metal canisters.

In the 1930s, the American filmmaker Julien Bryan chronicled life in Poland and Nazi Germany. When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Bryan risked his life to record the ferocious siege of Warsaw, “People might not believe my story if I told it in words when I returned to America. Everyone would believe my pictures.” Bryan embraced this philosophy throughout his career by aiming to further world understanding through documentary films.