When
photographer Jeffrey Gusky, M.D., FACEP, was given exclusive access to
record all but
forgotten underground cities of World War I lying beneath private farms
in France, he had no idea what to expect or the impact it would have on
others. Now captured in thousands of striking images, Gusky has titled
the collection
The Hidden World of WWI.
The beautiful art and emotionally charged inscriptions, carved in stone
by WWI soldiers, have been virtually untouched for almost 100 years.
They are a direct human
connection between then and now.
Gusky, a Dallas emergency physician, fine-art photographer and explorer, is believed to be the first person ever
to bring to light the large number of underground cities beneath the trenches of WWI.
The Hidden World of WWI reveals the artifacts, sculptures and
evocative graffiti left behind by soldiers on both sides of the
conflict. Landowners determined to preserve the past have zealously
protected these underground treasures for decades.
“Seeing
these subterranean cities for the first time was one of the most moving
experiences of my life,” Gusky says.
“Finding hundreds and hundreds of messages to the future, written by
soldiers in their own hand, made time seem to stand still. I feel a
tremendous responsibility to the people who trusted me enough to share
their secrets about these places. It was also amazing
to realize that while some people knew about some of these spaces, no
one knew about all of them.”
While
visiting France to photograph another project, Gusky had a chance
meeting with a French official – which resulted
in his first meetings with local WWI enthusiasts and several land
owners along the Western Front. Gusky’s passion for the story and his
commitment to protecting these hidden treasures earned their trust and
eventually led to encounters with many more people
who helped him find and photograph dozens of underground cities.
“To
witness the inner thoughts and feelings of the soldiers, carved in
stone, was more than inspiring; it was almost
spiritual,” Gusky explains. “My goal was to capture this outpouring of
human emotion and help make World War I real and relevant to people
today.”
One
of the first soldier’s carvings the Dallas photographer saw was a
perfectly executed, museum-quality relief sculpture
of a classic woman’s face chiseled into the wall of an obscure
underground quarry. At that moment he knew he had stumbled onto an
important story that could touch people around the world during the
100-year anniversary of WWI.
He
spent a total of six months exploring miles and miles of these
underground spaces. The often treacherous work
was performed in complete darkness and sometimes required him to crawl
on hands and knees through tight spaces, over jagged rocks, and to lean
down over ledges, balancing his camera in one hand. Additional perils in
the form of unexploded hand grenades and
live artillery shells were common.
Gusky
found thousands of works of art, graffiti and inscriptions by German,
French, British, American, Canadian,
Polish, Hungarian, Australian, New Zealand, Chinese, African and even
New Zealand Maori soldiers, among others. In at least one instance, it
was clear that three different armies had occupied the same underground
city over the course of the war. While they
left their mark in different languages, their graffiti and artwork was
less about war and politics and more about home and loved ones.
Gusky is strongly committed to preserve and protect these treasures in France. “I’m a man on a mission. I hope these
images will change the way we think about WWI and that they will be protected for future generations.
The Hidden World of WWI gives us a glimpse into the humanity of
individual soldiers who refused to be silenced in the face of modern
warfare. Men from both sides declared themselves as human beings who
could think, feel, express and create, and who remind
us today that they were here, that they once existed as living,
breathing human beings.”
Gusky’s discoveries and photographs are featured in the August 2014 issue of
National Geographic, The Hidden World of the Great War.
