Vienna exhibition shows wartime chronicler Yevgeny Khaldei’s work

An exhibition in Vienna presenting the photos of wartime chronicler Yevgeny Khaldei has launched at the city’s Jewish museum.

Khaldei, a Jewish photographer from Ukraine, accompanied the Red Army as an official war reporter during the liberation of Vienna. After the war, he became known for his iconic shot of Soviet soldiers raising the flag over the Reichstag.

Historians say his experience in knowing what Moscow would find ideologically acceptable led to him taking the official Soviet picture of the liberation of Vienna: soldiers carrying machine guns with the
Austrian flag fluttering in the background.

The exhibition, which runs until 1 November, shows potent images of fierce fighting for Vienna where, even in the final hours before Soviet troops finally captured the city, the SS continued killing Jews.

Khaldei’s images capture the street fighting, bombs, ruins, hunger and homelessness, as well as the new hope for a newly liberated population.