Dr. Roman Vishniac, one of the world’s leading photographers, whose photos of Jewish life in pre-war Poland have been exhibited by the YIVO in New York, has been engaged to produce a series of 40 films on the true-to-life behavior of living microscopic organisms to help improve the teaching of biology in high schools and colleges. The first part of the program is being financed by Yeshiva University under a $112,340 grant given to it by the National Science Foundation.
Dr. Vishniac was born sixty-three years ago in Russia. He left the country in 1920 and for the next 19 years lived in Berlin until he fled from the Nazis in 1940 and came to the United States. In describing the film project the scientist-photographer said he would aim at films that “come as close as possible to duplicating the experience of an original observer.”
Dr. Vishniac had made a number of trips for the Joint Distribution Committee in prewar Europe, immortalizing JDC aid to Jews in these countries in impressive photographs. He holds a Doctor of Medicine degree and is a fellow of both the New York Academy of Sciences and the Royal Microscopical Society in Britain.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
