Storming of Berlin: Rare HD WW2 photos from May 1945 colorized for the first time
#VictoryPages presents rare historical footage of the Battle of Berlin for the first time in color as part of RT’s tribute to the 75th anniversary of the defeat of fascism.
Brazilian artist Marina Amaral, famous for colorizing historical photos, gave these photographs a second life, adding color to one of the greatest battles of the Second World War. Her incredible work brings the viewer closer to history, allowing one to feel the scale of events unfolding in 1945 in the center of the defeated Third Reich.
For the 75th anniversary of victory in World War II, we are publishing a unique retrospective of the Berlin operation – footage from the archive of the Central Museum of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. These rare photos, which have never before been presented to a wide audience, are posted on the #VictoryPages Facebook account, as an art tribute to Victory.
Tanks riding the streets of Berlin, Soviet soldiers on the roof of the Reichstag, a view of the ruined Berlin – all this can be seen in vivid color thanks to the work of the famous digital artist Marina Amaral. Using modern colorization methods, she helps viewers see all the splendor of what was previously available only as black and white photographs.
The series ‘Storming Berlin in Color: Colorization by Marina Amaral’ started April 28 and will run until May 9.
Earlier, #VictoryPages was the first to show Marina Amaral’s project ‘Faces of Auschwitz’ to a Russian audience. Together with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, she worked on colorizing photographs of concentration camp inmates.
“The colorization of black and white photographs allows us to understand not only rationally, but also on a deeper level – emotionally – that the Holocaust affected human beings. Innocent people that had a life, friends, family, dreams, ambitions, fear, hope,” Marina says about her work.
“It is very easy to get lost in the gigantic numbers when we read about the Holocaust and the mass genocide committed during the period of the Third Reich, but when we individualize the victims and give back some sense of humanity to their image, we understand that they were not statistics, numbers, or fictional characters in a history book. They were as real as us,” Amaral goes on to say.
#VictoryPages talks about the Great Patriotic War through new media and digital art and can be seen on Facebook, YouTube, VK, Twitter and Instagram.
