Photographer John Florea standing in open hatch of a tank. (Photo by John Florea/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)
The photographs of John Florea (1916-2000) ranged from fluffier than meringue to dark as death. He was in a darkroom on December 7,1941, developing photographs of actress Jane Russell, when he heard about Pearl Harbor. He decided then and there to take his career in a different direction, which led to the dreadful combat at Tarawa, Rabaul and the Battle of the Bulge, then to the liberation of POW and concentration camps. Florea, the son of Romanian immigrants, was upset with LlFE’s meager coverage of the camps: “I felt that LIFE was ignoring it at times … evidently they were afraid that it would horrify their readers.” A stormy relationship with Picture Editor Wilson Hicks finally ended with Florea and the magazine parting ways in 1949. He went on to become a very successful director and producer of popular TV shows.
Private Joe Demler, a prisoner of the Germans for 3 months, revealing his skeleton-like limbs as he lies on cot. (Photo by John Florea/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)
“In the town of Limburg we discovered an Allied prison camp… They asked me for food that I didn’t have. I did have a roll of Life Savers with me … and I said to these fellows all in a row, ‘Fellows, this is all I’ve got. So I gave each one of these kids a Life Saver out of my roll. Finally, I started to run out and I started breaking them in half and giving each one of them a half. Then I asked a couple of them if they could get up. One kid could not. He weighed something like 70 pounds, and I’ll never forget his name. His name was Demler, Joe Demler.”
—Adapted from The Great LIFE Photographers
Photographer John Florea surrounded by Chinese children in a Queen’s Road marketplace. (Photo by John Florea/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)
The bodies of 3,000 of the Nazi’s slave laborers in preparation for burial. (Photo by John Florea/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)
Columnist Sidney Skolsky (L) catching a ride on Bob Hope’s (R) bicycle on his way from his dressing room to the sound stage. (Photo by John Florea/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)
