The Polish photographer Boris Kowadlo sought shelter in Amsterdam in 1933. In the years before the outbreak of World War II, Kowadlo became the foremost photographer of the Polish Jewish community.

Under the German Occupation, he adopted the pseudonym Bernard van der Linden and was involved in the De Ondergedoken Camera group. Part of his archive was lost, however, and from the photographs he took during the war, we have only received the prints.

Kowadlo owes his reputation in particular to his pocketbook of photographs Dit is Israël (This is Israel) that was brought out by the Contact publishing house in 1958. A year later Kowadlo died by drowning in Portugal.