by Jolanta Klietkutė
bernardinai.lt

Looking through surviving photographs of residents of Plungė between the two world wars, we come to realize most of the photographs were taken by M. Berkovich. If you ask old-time residents of Plungė who he was, they’ll tell you he was a famous photographer in town back then, and they’ll take you to show you his home where his studio was. Sadly, that’s the full extent of the information available… everyone knew he was this photographer, but nothing more.

THe biography of Berkovich, one of the most famous photographers in Plungė between the wars, has not been written yet. In his book “Lietuvos fotografijos istorija’ [History of Lithuanian Photography], V. Juodakis only provides a single sentence: “There was a photographer named M. Berkovich (1905-1932) in Plungė.” When we look at surviving photographs by Berkovich in museums and collectors’ archives, however, we see he photographed from 1903 to ca. 1939.

The photographer’s name was even concealed in the stamp, which included only his first initial, M, and which was placed on the back of photographs.

Full story in Lithuanian here.