In 1945, in the last year of World War II, Anton Iwanowski and his brother Wiktor escaped from a Soviet gulag in a stolen boat. During the long journey that followed, the escapees had to stay away from people. They travelled by night by walking or smuggling themselves onto freight trains slowly crossing Russia, Belarus and Lithuania, sleeping in the forests, eating mushrooms, berries and the occasional stolen cabbage until they reached their home in Wroclaw, Poland.
Almost 70 years later Anton Iwanoski’s grandson, photographer Michal Iwanowski returned to this journey using the improvised maps drawn by his uncle Wiktor. To document this journey through the eyes of a modern-day fugitive he also tried to avoid people. His images from this 1,300-mile journey were recently published in Clear of People, a book from Brave Books, along with Wiktor’s old family photos and notes from his journey. Even out of context, the landscape photographs are mysterious and cinematic, like props from a dark Eastern European fairy tale, and of course emotionally charged with the story of Iwanoski’s fugitive ancestors.
