While on a trip to Moscow, David Shneer stum­bled on the open secret that sparked this book — the pho­to­jour­nal­ists who cov­ered WWII in the USSR were almost exclu­sive­ly Jew­ish. Through Sovi­et-Jew­ish Eyes explores issues such as why pho­tog­ra­phy was so attrac­tive to Jews and how this unique group dealt with a war that turned out to have a par­tic­u­lar­ly Jew­ish slant. In Shneer’s telling, pho­tog­ra­phy becomes the lens through which we see how the Holo­caust unfold­ed in Sovi­et ter­ri­to­ries and how it was pre­sent­ed to the pop­u­la­tion dur­ing and after the war. What we learn is a side of the the Holo­caust sto­ry that most North Amer­i­cans have nev­er known about, even though, as it turns out some of our most icon­ic Shoah pho­tos were first seen ​“through Sovi­et Jews eyes.”