The Necessary War - A WWII Photo Book and Project

Hello, my name is Steven Ryan, the photographer, author, and founder of "The Necessary War" project and book. Since 2018 I have been on a mission to teach World War II and Holocaust history to the world through photography. This has been a two-part project. The first part has been photographing the cemeteries, battlefields, memorials, and concentration camps throughout the world. The immensely more personal part has been interviewing and doing portraits with the Veterans, Holocaust Survivors and Homefront Workers that we are lucky enough to still have with us.

Normandy American Cemetery

The number of living Veterans and Holocaust Survivors are decreasing enormously every day. When the research for this project began in 2017, approximately 620,000 United States WWII veterans were alive. That number is estimated around 110,000 today and will continue to dwindle every day until none remain with us. A widely accepted phrase for Holocaust education is the term “Never Again”. Many survivors and the men who liberated the horrific concentration camps of Europe would agree with that statement. Do we really believe in this?

I saw the most amazing sight that I could ever remember and I could still vividly remember is today, the lines of ships looked like there were so many there were like 700 ships over that period of week, back and forth from England to Normandy beaches it looked like you could step from one ship to the next. It was just a remarkable sight.

-Jim Frolking, 436th Fighter Squadron

The Necessary War photo project is an enormous endeavor to create a photo book and educational platform dedicated to the history of World War II and the Holocaust. To this point I have been honored to take the portrait of 190 heroes who have been willing to participate. It is their willingness to share some of the stories from the worst and most difficult parts of their lives that has inspired me to continue this work. One of my main inspirations for this mission was my grandmother’s Holocaust survival story. Born into an Italian-Jewish family, she survived by spending her weekdays at a convent and her weekends amongst the crowds with her mother and sister attempting to remain hidden from the Nazi’s. They were once caught at home by the S.S., but my great-grandmother's quick thinking and wittiness is the only reason any of my family or I exist today.

Auschwitz-Birkenau

So why is this fundraiser being started? Because I simply can no longer afford the expenses of the project. I am about 6 years into this work, which has been funded nearly 100% out of my own pocket. There is still so much more to do, yet I need your help to complete the work. One of my promises to the veterans is to send them a framed copy of their portrait after I meet with them. That alone has cost over $1,500 in supplies and shipping costs this year. The amount of money spent thus far on gas, car rentals, hotels, airfare, car maintenance, etc. to conduct this project is incalculable and is well into the tens of thousands. I still have the vast Pacific Theater to document in order to honor the sacrifices made and the brutality faced on that side of the globe.

“So, four o’clock, on the 29th of April, I’m in line. I pick up the soup for myself and I say, this is for him, and they gave me another bowl of soup, and another piece of bread. And I’m going to him, and he takes the soup, and at that moment, the prisoners are shouting, ‘The Americans are here, we are free!’

- Elly Gotz, Holocaust Survivor

Why is this project so important?

Because we believe in the freedom, we hold so dear. Because we cannot let the stories of the past fade with time. Because we believe the World War II and Holocaust needs to be learned and known by our children and adults alike. Watching the terrorist attacks on Israel on the ensuing war with Gaza shows us what hate can still do to a society today, why this project is so important, why I am spending such an incredible amount of time and money traveling the world and I am asking for your donation.

- Luxembourg American Cemetery on the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge

This idea of a photo project or to interview veterans and survivors is by no means unique. There have been portrait projects, photo essays on Europe and the Pacific today, and there are countless organizations interviewing our veterans and survivors. What makes this project and book so special and unlike anything done before, is it will bring together all these efforts in one encompassing project and book to serve as an educational platform for years to come to teach not only the youth of today, but the people of all generations for decades to come using the visual medium of photography and video.

"I had never shot anyone before. People think they can walk around with a gun and shoot somebody, that it's easy, it's not."

- Louis Dworkin, 75th Infantry Division

There are still veterans and survivors across the country and the world whose stories should be documented on the pages of this book and as part of this project. Important trips still need to be made in order to document the testimonies of these heroes both in the United States and around the globe. Funding will help to document the battlefields on the forgotten front of my grandmother’s home country, Italy. The gargantuan task your donations will help to make happen, is two trips to the Pacific to document the battlefields and cemetery there. Important locations on the Pacific front include Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, the Philippines, Saipan, Guam, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.

"He loved his wife.... It was another guy who told me, your buddy got killed last night. I said who? He said, Rochelle, Herman, and I just crumbled. I said no man, no not Herm, I just went to my knees, I was hurting. He wanted to live, he wanted to live so badly. It just crushed me."

- Ray Robinson, 92nd Infantry Division

Your donations are greatly needed to help with the travel expenses to all these places such as airfare, car rentals, hotels, gas, and car maintenance. It will help to make sure equipment is repaired and maintained. It will help cover the expenses of getting this book published to teach the world about this important period of history. It will help to get interviews of our survivors and veterans published online for all to learn from. It will provide me the ability to begin speaking around the world to teach the lessons to be learned from our World War II Veterans and Holocaust Survivors.

Please help with a donation today, so that this mission to teach about what hate and war did to our planet during World War II, and why we must work to end war and hate today can be accomplished.

Thank you

-Steven Ryan