Photographer Bernard Gotfryd was born Poland. During World War II, he worked in a photography studio but was apprehended in 1943 by the German occupational forces and spent the remainder of the war in six concentration camps.

In 1947, Gotfryd emigrated to the United States, and worked as a photographer while he studied photojournalism. In 1949, he was drafted and assigned to the Army Signal Corps as a combat photographer. After his discharge, Gotfryd worked as a freelance photographer and joined the staff of Newsweek magazine in 1957, where he worked for three decades. He died in New York City.