© Zdeněk Tmej, 1943, Sunday Card Game, Wrocław (Breslau) / Poland

Zdenek Tmej’s ‘Abeceda Dusevniho Prazdna (The Alphabet of Spiritual Emptiness)’ published in 1946 enables a rare look, from a captive’s perspective, inside a Nazi forced labor camp in Breslau, Poland during World War II.

It is remarkable that Tmej, a Czech citizen made to work for the Nazi war effort for three years, was allowed to photograph at all, let alone describe the psychological stasis of his experience with the poetic voice that these portraits and still-lifes convey. (see more sample pics on Errata Editions).

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