Carol Kitman, 96, Dies; Photographer Documented the Vindman Twins

A chance encounter in Brooklyn led to a decades-long project following the boys’ lives, from childhood to national prominence as critics of President Trump.


Carol Kitman in 1978. via the Kitman family

By Clay Risen
March 18, 2026

Carol Kitman, a New York photographer whose chance encounter with twin immigrant brothers in Brooklyn led to a decades-long project documenting their lives, tracking them through bar mitzvahs, weddings, military careers and, during the first Trump administration, the political scandal that made Alexander and Eugene Vindman household names, died on March 3 in the Bronx. She was 96. ... Her son, Jamie Kitman, confirmed the death, at a retirement home.

In 1980, Mrs. Kitman was walking the streets of the Brighton Beach neighborhood with her camera, capturing the area’s vibrant immigrant community on film, when she noticed two identical young boys in identical blue sailor suits.

The boys had recently arrived as refugees from Ukraine after their mother had died of cancer. They were with their grandmother, who spoke to them in Yiddish. Mrs. Kitman, the daughter of Jewish immigrants, spoke Yiddish as well, and the two women struck up a conversation. Within minutes, she was photographing the boys, tagging along as they moved energetically from storefront to storefront.


The Vindman twins as 5-year-olds in 1980, photographed by Mrs. Kitman. She documented their lives into adulthood. Carol Kitman, via the Kitman family

Mrs. Kitman soon lighted on the idea to follow the boys — not just through their day but also through their lives. ... “My mother was brought here also at 3 or 4, and her mother had died back in Bialystok, Poland,” she told The Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2019. “So their having lost their mother really resonated.” ... She wasn’t the only documentarian who took interest in the boys: They appeared in Ken Burns’s 1985 film “The Statue of Liberty,” which included an image of them with their grandmother on a boardwalk.

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Alexander, left, and Eugene Vindman in 2017. Mrs. Kitman photographed them as they were promoted up the ranks of the Army, both to lieutenant colonel. Carol Kitman

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Mrs. Kitman in 1972 with her husband, Marvin Kitman, who was a television critic and syndicated columnist. She picked up photography after he gave up his aspirations to pursue it as a career. via the Kitman family

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Clay Risen is a Times reporter on the Obituaries desk.

A version of this article appears in print on March 20, 2026, Section B, Page 12 of the New York edition with the headline: Carol Kitman, 96, Who Photographed The Vindman Twins Over 4 Decades. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Marvin Kitman, Satirist Whose Main Target Was TV, Dies at 93

He twitted the networks for 35 years as a critic at Newsday. He also audited George Washington’s wartime expense account and wrote a biography of Bill O’Reilly.


Marvin Kitman at a Museum of Television and Radio event in 1991. He began his career as a TV critic only after his editor agreed that he could reveal in his first column that he had never regularly watched television. Ron Galella, via Getty Images

By Sam Roberts
June 29, 2023

Marvin Kitman, who survived longer as a television reviewer than most of the programs he mirthfully critiqued, and who as a satirist and amateur historian audaciously, if belatedly, audited George Washington’s Revolutionary War expense account, died on Thursday at the Actors Fund Home in Englewood, N.J. He was 93. ... His son, Jamie Kitman, said the cause was cancer.

Mr. Kitman joined the leftist but anti-Soviet magazine The New Leader as a TV critic in 1967, only after the magazine’s editor agreed that he could reveal in his first column that he had never regularly watched television. ... He began writing a syndicated column for the Long Island daily newspaper Newsday on Dec. 7, 1969 — “a day that will live in infamy,” he said, “as far as the TV industry is concerned.”

Over 35 years he churned out 5,786 columns, championing groundbreaking shows like “All in the Family,” “Seinfeld” and “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” while mercilessly panning others. He branded the 1980 debut of the sixth season of “Saturday Night Live” “offensive and raunchy” and wrote of “Kentucky Woman,” a 1983 TV movie starring Cheryl Ladd, the former “Charlie’s Angels” star: “Cheryl Ladd as a coal miner was a very moving television experience. It made me want to convert to nuclear power.”

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Sam Roberts, an obituaries reporter, was previously The Times’s urban affairs correspondent and is the host of “The New York Times Close Up,” a weekly news and interview program on CUNY-TV.

A version of this article appears in print on June 30, 2023, Section B, Page 10 of the New York edition with the headline: Marvin Kitman, 93, Who Twitted TV Networks for 35 Years, Is Dead. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe