The last Greek survivors of the Holocaust
Artemis Alcalay actualizes a visual recording of the Greek Jews who survived the horrors of the Concentration camps, a unique artistic transcription in Greek documentation.
Within the last two years the artist Artemis Alcalay has undertaken a photographic project which is not only extremely arduous but also of great importance. Travelling all over Greece (and presently abroad) the Athenian creator comes into contact with and photographs the last remaining Greek Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, making a ‘silent’ study on the trauma which remains permanently engraved in the memory, after seventy whole years.
This ‘narrative without words’though it revolves around a visual viewing of the subject, remains today perhaps the only record of the few remaining Greeks who managed to survive the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps. An astonishing as well as moving undertaking.
Η Artemis Alcalay was born in Athens in 1957. She studied painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts under Iannis Moralis and Dimitris Mytaras and scenography with Vassilis Vassiliades. She continued her studies at New York University and has trained in weaving and photography. Her work is exhibited both in Greece and internationally. Most of her pieces are in mixed media, combining painting, sculpture, weaving, photography and digital art.
The work is still in progress, so the first title that comes to mind is ‘narrative without words’. Photographing the Greek Jews who survived the Nazi concentration camps is a subject that has concerned me since I was young. Many members of my family perished in the camps. Seventy years have passed since the liberation from Auschwitz, and now that many of my relatives have passed away, I decided to begin this project.
The exhibition ‘Home an Installation’ at Gallery 7 in 2010 and ‘Home a wandering’ at Beton 7 in 2012, were the foundations on which this series of photographs is based. In the company of my small pieces, ‘the houses’, I travelled all over Athens, I met and talked to a large number of people and groups with particular characteristics. One of these groups were the Greek Holocaust survivors who I have devoted the last two years to photographing. I am overwhelmed by their horrific experiences on the one hand and the inner strength and the wisdom they have acquired, on the other. I am under the impression that there are large gaps in the records of Greek Jews who survived the Holocaust. For years they themselves have chosen this silence, out of fear.
The traumatic memories were unspoken for decades. The testimonies began only recently. In this particular work memory translates into a ‘work of art’ where words are obsolete and the image carries all the messages. These photographs have an interactive character blending the scene of the memories with the immediate present and future.
Up to this moment I have photographed 21 people, 17 women and 4 men. There are two people in Corfu and a few in Thessaloniki with whom I am in contact and who I hope to include in my work. I am trying to include all the communities which flourished before the war. After I photographed those living in Athens, I went to Corfu, Yannena, Thessaloniki, Volos, and Larissa to meet victims who originated from communities which were completely annihilated like in Arta, Kastoria etc.
Recently I travelled to Rhodes for the 70th anniversary of the deportation, where I met victims who live abroad; in Italy, Belgium and the USA. I would like to travel outside Greece since many migrated to other countries after the war, not only from Greece but from all over Europe, seeking a peaceful haven.
This contact is not particularly difficult. I am constantly in touch with many families and Jewish communities all over Greece and around the world, as well as Nursing Homes like Restio in Athens and Saoul Modiano in Thessaloniki. Every family has a relative, friend or acquaintance who survived and their help has been invaluable.
I was received with extreme kindness and courtesy by the survivors, their children, their grandchildren. There were very few cases of people who did not wish to be photographed. Three of them refused to be included. It is something I understand and totally accept. Time is relative, the soul is timeless….
Everyone experiences, comprehends and reacts differently. They try to keep the ghosts of the past at bay in any way possible, so they can continue living. Very often their families try to protect them from reliving the trauma.
They are all between 86 and 104 years old. Those who were sent to the camps at a very young age are still alive today. Mr. Moshe Cohen, at 84, is the youngest, while Mrs. Germaine Cohen, at 104, is the oldest! I didn’t include ages in the portraits because even now, most of them don’t want their ages listed!
Inevitably, our conversation went in circles, moving back and forth between the past and the present, between the painful and the beautiful. The carefree life before the camp, the return, the struggle to get back on their feet, the creation of a new family. In such a deeply personal project, both sides are deeply affected.
In the same portrait, alongside these people, I have included one of my own works: a small house. It symbolizes the family they lost, but also the family they built from scratch upon their return—a return not necessarily to their home, which had been trampled, demolished, lost. This house bridges the visual artwork with the documentary. Finally, it symbolizes the “space” between me and the person I photograph.
Most people carry their camp number with them—a part of their lives that links the past to the present. But I also met two women who decided to remove it, to move on without it.
Not many remain—just a few in Thessaloniki and Corfu. Some live in Argentina, the United States, the Congo, South Africa, and Israel.
The recent rise of far-right and neo-Nazi parties in crisis-stricken Europe proves that REMEMBRANCE is essential. Especially today, the lessons of the past should lead us to embrace diversity and to collaborate with others. I know there are many who deny the Holocaust, and I find that sad. Even sadder is the fact that its deniers are finding more and more followers.
Anti-Semitism, as the university professor argues Anna Fragoudaki in “The Relationship Between Anti-Semitism and Racism and Greek National Identity,” it has been deeply rooted in our society for centuries. From time to time, it changes form and names, so that it remains unrecognizable even to those who embrace it. It serves as the model and foundation of all racism, which is why it is extremely dangerous. It concerns us all, not just those “involved.”
The only solution is to remain vigilant against the distortion and falsification of history. The people I photograph are not the product of some artistic fantasy. They are real people, just as the numbers visible on their hands are real. I do not wish to prove, demonstrate, or imply anything; I simply wish to pay tribute through a wordless narrative…
I will continue my wanderings until I have photographed as many of them as I can. Interacting with them is a source of great emotion and insight.