To commemorate the end of the Second World War, the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the UN Office and other International Organizations in Geneva, in collaboration with the Association for Media and Press, is organising an exhibition featuring photographs by Yevgeny Khaldey, a war photographer and naval officer. Khaldey is known for his Second World War photographs, which he took while also engaging in combat.
Yevgeny Khaldey was born into an Orthodox Jewish family in the Russian Empire in 1916. Khaldey's photographic career began at the age of 16 while working at a factory. In 1936 Khaldei moved to Moscow and began a serious career in photojournalism in the Tass News Agency. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Khaldey was dedicated to documenting the War from the front lines. He captured many piercing images during the nearly four years that Russia fought Germany. He also photographed Soviet women who were pilots and snipers, Jews suddenly freed from ghettoes, and people carting meager possessions out of bombed homes. His stark portrayals convey the human drama. His photos of the Allied Summit meetings at Yalta and Potsdam, as well as Nuremberg trials, were distributed worldwide.
The 58 works in the exhibition are photos covering the period from June 1941 to October 1946 and depict the events in the Polar region as well as the Northern fleet (photos of pilots, submariners, sailors of allied powers), military operations and lulls in the battles, the Black Sea fleet, the liberation of the Caucasus, Kuban, the signature of the German surrender act, the Moscow victory parade of 1945, the liberation of Port Arthur and Harbin City, the Potsdam Conference and the Nuremberg trials.