Kazmiera Mika, subject of harrowing WW2 photo, dies

[Syt]

https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/woman-captured-in-one-of-wwiis-most-harrowing-photos-dies-at-age-of-93-15566

Woman captured in one of WWII's most harrowing photos dies at age of 93

The woman who as a young girl was the subject of one the most famous and shocking photographs of WWII has died aged 93.

Kazimiera Mika was pictured by American photographer Julien Bryan kneeling beside the body of her dead sister just moments after they had been machine-gunned by German aircraft.

The shock and grief on 12-year-old Mika's face brought home to the world the savagery of the indiscriminate force Nazi Germany's forces were using as they rolled across Poland in 1939.

The photograph was taken during the siege of Warsaw in September. Desperate for food a group of women were digging in a potato field in the capital's Powązki district when they came under attack from Luftwaffe aircraft.

After bombing some houses, Bryan recalled, the aircraft returned to attack the defenceless women.

"In a few minutes they came back and swooped down to within two hundred feet of the ground, this time raking the field with machine-gun fire," the photographer wrote years later.

"Two of the seven women were killed. The other five escaped somehow. While I was photographing the bodies, a little ten-year old girl came running up and stood transfixed by one of the dead.

"The woman was her older sister. The child had never before seen death and couldn't understand why her sister would not speak to her...The child looked at us in bewilderment.

"I threw my arm about her and held her tightly, trying to comfort her. She cried. So did I, and the two Polish officers who were with me."

Mika survived the war, and would meet Bryan again in 1958 and 1974. Last year, Bryan's son Sam travelled to Warsaw, and with Mika visited her sister's grave on the 80th anniversary of her death.

The photographer:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julien_Bryan

As we drove by a small field at the edge of town we were just a few minutes too late to witness a tragic event, the most incredible of all. Seven women had been digging potatoes in a field. There was no flour in their district, and they were desperate for food. Suddenly two German planes appeared from nowhere and dropped two bombs only two hundred yards away on a small home. Two women in the house were killed. The potato diggers dropped flat upon the ground, hoping to be unnoticed. After the bombers had gone, the women returned to their work. They had to have food. But the Nazi fliers were not satisfied with their work. In a few minutes they came back and swooped down to within two hundred feet of the ground, this time raking the field with machine-gun fire. Two of the seven women were killed. The other five escaped somehow. While I was photographing the bodies, a little ten-year old girl came running up and stood transfixed by one of the dead. The woman was her older sister. The child had never before seen death and couldn't understand why her sister would not speak to her...The child looked at us in bewilderment. I threw my arm about her and held her tightly, trying to comfort her. She cried. So did I and the two Polish officers who were with me...

[The Brain]

[KRonn]

Oh wow, I've often seen these pics in TV documentaries or elsewhere so I had recently looked up this story for more info, to see how she had fared during the war and after, if she survived. I saw pics of her as an old woman in a WW2 museum next to large pictures of these photos. She had some notoriety as these pics were some of the first the world saw of civilians in WW2. The reporter was an American who happened to be driving by the area just after a German air attack.

RIP

[merithyn]

I've never seen these photos. That poor child.

[mongers]

I was only thinking of this tragedy and the iconic photo just a few days ago, and how tens of millions of other children would suffer such terrible loss in the following six years.