Debrecen4U August 10, 2026

Shocking Photos in the Shadow of War: The Stories of Everyday Heroes on Display in Debrecen

Shocking documentary photos of everyday heroes—an exhibition titled “Vasemberek” has opened at the gallery of the Péter Méliusz Juhász Central Library.

The photographs on display document the daily lives of railroad workers serving behind the front lines in Ukraine.

At the exhibition’s opening, Deputy Mayor István Puskás stated that the photographs pay tribute to all railway workers—including those from Debrecen—who lost their lives in the war. Wounded on a Train—Jelle Krings spent three years documenting a distinctive slice of the events of the Ukrainian-Russian war. The Dutch reporter and documentary filmmaker followed the lives of the railroad workers—the people who keep Ukraine’s 20,000-kilometer railway network running even amid wartime conditions.

“The greatest strength of these images is that they not only show how the railroad workers do their jobs, but also how they help people. This is reflected in the footage, which many people should see, because solidarity is needed everywhere,” Gert Loosen, director of the Flemish Cultural Center in Debrecen, said.

At the opening of the exhibition Deputy Mayor István Puskás remarked that these recordings pay tribute not only to Ukrainian railroad workers. On June 2, 1944, a devastating carpet bombing was carried out against the city. The targets of the attack were the railway junction and the train station; 1,200 people lost their lives, including many railroad workers. “For us, this must serve as a reminder of those weeks and days in 1944 when something similar happened here in Debrecen. Unfortunately, no photographic documentation of that event was made, and none has survived, but this somehow makes that chilling past feel present to us,” Deputy Mayor István Puskás emphasized.