What happened to the author of one of the most famous World War II photos of all time?
Evgeny Khaldei took arguably the most famous WWII photograph of all time, but a mere year later, his own country made every effort to disown him, calling him a “mediocre” photographer.
A locksmith by trade, the self-taught photographer Evgeny Khaldei spent 1,418 days in the war, becoming the only Soviet photographer to have gone through it all, and filmed the action since the first to the very last day, including the Potsdam Conference, the German capitulation, the Nuremberg trials and so on.
At first, no one doubted Khaldei’s achievements. He was awarded numerous honors for his work. However, a year later, the mood toward Jews in government structures had begun to grow sour fast. And even the Soviet news agency, TASS, where Khaldei worked, followed suit. “A mediocre correspondent that barely managed to do his part” was how he was characterized during his firing.
The photographer had fallen into disfavor with authorities and practically abandoned for years. At one point, he even feared for his safety, and destroyed all the negatives containing images of people who faced Stalin’s infamous purges. He did odd jobs until his retirement in 1976.
Khaldei would only be remembered abroad, on the anniversary of the Great Victory, 50 years later. At the special invitation of the President of France, in 1995, he was welcomed at the international photography festival in Perpignan, where he was named Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters for his achievements. Half a year before his death in 1997, he was honored in Europe with a film about his life, and a book, in the US.
