While teaching photography to seniors in Borough Park Brooklyn in 2018, I was able to meet Holocaust survivors, and hear their harrowing, extraordinary stories.There are more Holocaust survivors in Borough Park and several surrounding Brooklyn neighborhoods, than anywhere in the country.
The Survivor Portraits Project is comprised of black and white environmental portraits, audio recordings of their recollections, in addition to rephotographed documents and family photos of relatives, some of whom did not survive. This project has particular resonance for me, based on my family history, and Jewish roots in Nazi Germany.
My grandmother had been a surgical nurse before the rise of Hitler, and managed on her own efforts to get a visa to come to the US, along with my father who was six at the time, and grandfather. Her brother, his wife, and their five year old daughter were murdered in a concentration camp. Their other child Larry, my grandmother’s nephew, was sent to England on the Kindertransport. She located him through the Red Cross after the war, and brought him to the Bronx, where he was raised as my father’s brother.
I recently had an exhibit of ten portraits of survivors with text (excerpts from the audio) at the Borough Park Library, that was easily accessed, and successfully received by the community.
My goal is to expand the number of participants in this project, and have the exhibit travel to other locations in New York City and nationally.
In light of the disturbing events in Charlottesville, the shooting and murder of 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg, and the most recent attack at the Chabad of Poway synagogue in a San Diego suburb, it is essential to document the experiences of people who have lived through the consequences of fascism and virulent anti-Semitism.
The Atlantic quoted University of Chicago historian David Nirenberg, who pointed out,” the violence in Charlottesville was part of a broader political context. The fringe right is reacting to other political movements with nostalgia,—a yearning for people, including minorities like Jews and blacks, to “know their place.”
As Charlottesville protestors marched with torches chanting "blood and soil" a phrase drawn from Nazi ideology,and "Jews will not replace us.”, they displayed a depth of anti-Semitism that exists today, that was shocking, particularly for Jewish people who live in New York City.