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Jeffrey Wolin
Photographer-Artist
My interest in the Holocaust dates back to my childhood in the 1950s in a Jewish neighborhood in suburban New York.
The war was still fresh in my parents' minds. My grandparents, immigrants from Eastern Europe, would go ballistic whenever
talk would turn to Hitler and the Germans. My grandfather was unable to find out exactly what happened to his family, but
they did not survive the war. I have spent the past two years engaged in my project with Holocaust survivors. Following an
interview, I photograph them. I try to find elements in their stories that can be expressed visually in the portrait. I am
fully aware that no one who did not directly experience the Holocaust can truly understand the depths of horror that Jews
in Europe experienced at the hands of the Nazis. Nevertheless, it is my hope that by providing a face of great power, an audience
can empathize with the survivors.
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| MARIAM, Survivor with her story |
"I should like someone to
remember that there once lived a person named David Berger."
David Berger was born and grew up in the Polish town of Przemysl. When the war broke out,
in 1939, he fled from the invading German forces, ending up in Vilna (Vilnius). While in Vilna he corresponded with his friend,
Elsa, who had managed to leave Poland for British-controlled Palestine in 1938. In his postcard he bid Elsa farewell, assuming
that he would not survive.
He was shot in Vilna in July 1941. He was 19 years old.
The letters
were donated to the Masuah Archives at the Institute of Holocaust Studies, Kibbutz Tel Yitzchak.
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