In 1939, when Vishniac photographed his parents in Nice, 300,000 of the 43 million people living in France were Jews. Two-thirds of the Jewish population lived in Paris, many of whom had emigrated from countries across Europe in an effort to escape antisemitism. In 1940, after France fell to the invading Germans, the country was divided into a northern and western zone, directly occupied by the Nazis, and a southern zone controlled by the puppet Vichy government. Many Jews left Paris, in the northern zone, seeking tenuous refuge in the south, where Vishniac began living in hiding in early 1941.

For all uses of photographs by Roman Vishniac contact ICP at: vishniac_archive@icp.org.