These 32 Pictures Had Been Buried For Years. The Reason Is Heart-Breaking

In the winter of 1944, when the Holocaust took place, Jewish photographer Henryk Ross buried a box of photographs in the ground. One year later, he came back to dig up the pictures, and the heart-breaking story they narrated still lives to this day.

Henryk Ross of Łódź, Poland was a news and sports photographer when German military forces invaded his city in 1939. Since then, he survived by capturing identity and propaganda photos for the Nazi Department of Statistics.

Nevertheless, while working for Nazis, he also risked his life to secretly document everyday events in the Łódź ghetto, which finally included the sentencing of its residents to death camps. Fearing that he would also end up in a camp, Ross decided to bury his pictures beside his house in a tar-sealed box, preserving evidence of the atrocities against his people for future generations.

After the Soviet Army set Łódź free in 1945, Ross came back to unearth his pictures, many of which were damaged or ruined by ground water. However, the ones that remained intact provided a deep look inside the tragic experiences and, even, deaths of Polish Jews. Nowadays, the photographs are hosted by the Art Gallery of Ontario home and are memorials to the victims of the world's hugest genocide.

More info: Henryk Ross

1940-1944: Portrait Of A Couple

1940: A Man Who Saved The Torah From The Rubble Of The Synagogue On Wolborska Street

1940-1944: A Boy Searching For Food

1940: A Man Walking In Winter In The Ruins Of The Synagogue On Wolborska Street (Destroyed By Germans In 1939)

1944: Food Pails And Dishes Left Behind By Ghetto Residents Who Had Been Deported To Death Camps

1940-1944: A Smiling Child

1945: Henryk Ross' Excavating His Hidden Box Of Negatives And Documents From The Lodz Ghetto

1940-1942: Woman With Her Child (Ghetto Policemen's Family)

1940-1944: Young Girl

1940-1944: Sign For Jewish Residential Area (“Jews. Entry Forbidden”)

1940-1942: Lodz Ghetto Prison At Czarnecki Street, A Rallying Point Before Deportation

1940-1944: A Wedding In The Ghetto

1940-1944: A Boy In A Doorway Swing

1940-1944: Deportation In Winter

1942: Children Being Transported To Chelmno Nad Nerem (Renamed Kulmhof) Death Camp

1940: Henryk Ross Photographing For Identification Cards, Jewish Administration, Department Of Statistics

1940: Baking Flat Bread

1940-1944: Young Girl Among The Greenery

1940-1944: Woman Sitting In The Ruins Of The Synagogue On Wolborska Street, Destroyed By The Germans In 1939

1940-1944: A Sick Man On The Ground

1940-1944: A Group Of Women With Sacks And Pails, Walking Past Synagogue Ruins Heading For Deportation

1940-1944: Children Looking Out The Window

1940-1944: Skulls And Bones On Ground

1940-1944: "Soup For Lunch” (Group Of Men Alongside Building Eating From Pails)

1942: Police With Woman Behind Barbed Wire At The Ghetto

1940-1944: A Nurse Feeding Children In An Orphanage

1945: Three Men After Liberation By The Red Army

1942: Evacuation Of The Sick

1940-1944: The Removal Of Feces In The Ghetto By Men And Women Workers

1940-1944: A Jewish Policeman With His Wife And Child In Marysin

1940-1944: Delivery Of Potatoes To The Ghetto

1942: Men Hauling Cart For Bread Distribution