Warsaw, Poland. The young American photographer John Vacon has just arrived in the city on behalf of the UN. He writes to his wife, Penny: “It really is an incredible city (…) Now, 90% of it is destroyed… Everywhere you look, you find only large chunks of buildings standing without roofs or much of the side walls, and the people living in them. Except for the ghetto, where there is only a great layer of bricks, with twisted beds and toilet pipes and sofas, framed pictures, trunks, millions of things protruding between the bricks. I can’t understand how all this was possible… it’s something so horrible I can’t believe it.”
