Zip­py Orlin was a vol­un­teer for the Amer­i­can Jew­ish Joint Dis­tri­b­u­tion Com­mit­tee. She cared for the youngest chil­dren. Her album orig­i­nal­ly had 1,117 pho­tos and weighed 33 pounds. The pho­tos show school, sports, the­ater, and fes­tiv­i­ties of the camp res­i­dents as they regained their ​“lust for life.” 

The pho­tos are arranged by theme, with lit­tle con­cern for chronol­o­gy. Because of Zippy’s work, many pho­tos show smil­ing, healthy chil­dren, even though so many had been orphaned. We see ​“youth­ful appetites and beam­ing faces.” As Elie Wiesel not­ed— ​“Pho­tographs are more evoca­tive than words, any words.” This can be seen in the pho­tos of those depart­ing for Israel. The pho­tos graph­i­cal­ly empha­size the trans­for­ma­tion of those who were the rem­nants of a beat­en peo­ple into a new­ly restored pop­u­la­tion, whose faith in human­i­ty was regained when they left Europe for their new home­land — Israel. 

The brief com­men­taries are sec­ondary to the pho­tos. The upbeat pho­tos are a fit­ting anti­dote to the more wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed pic­tures of the con­cen­tra­tion camps. Notes.