“Not everything was shown [in the reel], but certainly something. At any rate, it was enough to give an idea of the bestial and brutal action of Zorgiebel’s police, overwhelmingly and cold-bloodedly murdering unarmed workers. Even the mostly good bourgeois audience at the Ufa Zoo Palace answered the film strips with howls and scornful whistling. There were naturally those who demonstratively and approvingly applauded the actions of Zorgiebel’s police, among them a Teuton as tall as a tree, who sat not far from the photomonteur. [John] Heartfield leaped from his seat as if stung by a tarantula and hissed at the broad shouldered German, “You Swine! You Swine! You Swine!” After the program came to an end, the Teuton, who lay in wait for Heartfield, grabbed the slight man by his collar. “Now you will promptly take back your insult. What did you say I was?” Heartfield, in an iron voice, powerless, scarcely breathing: “You are a swine.” The man threw Heartfield to the floor and punched him over and over in the face, repeating with rage ”What am I? What am I?” Heartfield, with lips pressed together: “A swine. A swine. A swine.”…until he was freed—bloody, smashed, half unconscious—by a growing crowd of onlookers. ”
János Reismann Quotes – Working With The Famous Political Artist
János Reismann
János Reisman (1905-1976) was a Hungarian photographer and journalist. He worked extensively as a photographer with John Heartfield.
More about Reisman and Heartfield can be found in John Heartfield and the Agitated Image by Andrés Mario Zervigón.
János Reismann
