In December 2013, I received a 'forward' e-mail from my friend Suzie Schwartz, to which was attached a file entitled Poland: Jewish life in the 1900s. The file contained a beautifully presented and annotated series of photographs of Jewish life in Poland in the twentieth century up till 1938. I was enchanted by the photographs and asked Suzie to try to discover, from the person who had forwarded the e-mail to her, the name and contact details of the originator. I felt that these beautiful and historically important photos would have even greater value if, rather than being circulated as an anonymous 'presentation', were compiled into a book that could be made publicly accessible. Suzie replied, however, that the person who had sent her the photos didn't know where they had come from and nor did the person who had sent them to him.
I managed to unlock the photos from the file in which they were contained, and, using the details that the author had so carefully gathered, have arranged them in this book, which I hope does justice to the painstaking work and research that the collection's anonymous originator so clearly did. The resolution of the images, taken as they were from a locked PowerPoint file, is low, and it is for this reason that I have chosen a small format for the book.
I hope that, once the book circulates, it may perchance reach the originator of this collection in the same random way that his or her 'forwarded' e-mail reached me. I hope that he (or she) will be as delighted with the final product as I am and will, using the address I have provided on the page to the left, contact me so that he or she can be acknowledged and identified as the originator in future editions.