GUEST ARTISTS

Ethnographers argument – Nikola Radić Lucati

Image 1
Mento is a short, stunted, but still young man, with a single wandering eye, his face red and bloated. He is always drunk and hungover,  but neither of these fully.  A son of a small merchant, himself also a pupil at the merchant school, this Mento, since he was a schoolboy had started out with vagrants like himself, drinking and gambling in bars at the outskirts. Of gay disposition and a drunkard, better known among his companions as Herzika, than by his proper name, he is a Sephardic Jew. In Sarajevo Sephardic community, Herzika is considered a lost man, a scabious sheep, an exception and a degenerate, long time not seen among the Jews. Herzika never cared much what Jews think. He had distanced himself from family, while meddling with police and financial authorities, entertaining his guests with his humor and singing, bickering, fighting and making amends with his Agatha, and everything he would make, he either drinks up, gambles away or lets it go as unpaid fare.

Ivo Andrić, “Buffet Titanik”, 1950, Emir Kusturica, 1979.
(Andric’s wartime apartment balcony, in Prizrenska st, Belgrade, with a direct view over Sava to the camp at Sajmište / Judenlager Semlin).

Image 2
We were moving through the Dalmatian villages that had to feed us while having no food left for themselves. Still, somehow, we made it to the coast. We came atop a hill where we gave our weapons to the local partisans, as there were enough guns on Vis. On that hill we were to wait for a boat. We looked around, there was nothing and noone. It was raining, and we had spent several days in that rain, with very little food. Like the abandoned, we would descend to the shore, waiting for the boat. When the boat would not show up, we would climb back up to wait for the next evening.

Andreja Preger, pianist, “ A century with music”.
(Andreja Preger’s piano, donated to the Jewish community).

Image 3
“…translating, I didn’t go for the beauty, and especially not for the beautification. I tried to follow, intentionally letting the roughness and forcefulness of the original expression be, in the measure that can be achieved in transposing the material from one idiom to the other, from the age of antiquity to our own time.

”Eugen Verber, from the preface to his translation of Talmud, 1990.
(Jewsih community building elevator, the oldest in Belgrade, was a gift from the king Aleksander Karađorđević, assassinated by the pro-Ustashi terrorists in 1934 and succeeded by pro-German government.)

Image 4
“… I  answered that I will rather let myself be baptized than to be killed, because, in spite of everything, the temporary suffering of lasting is more valuable than the final emptiness of the nothingness. Then, they have grabbed me and shoved me out of the house, not allowing me to change my house robe into some more appropriate clothes, taking me as I were to the Saint-Etienne cathedral. “

“…They said to me: “Take the path we all have and we shall give you a hand”; and more they said: “Do not seek other path aside from the road everyone is taking”. And still they said: “Following your path, many were killed.” Then I answered: “Let us go back to the church.”

Danilo Kiš, Tomb for Boris Davidovič.
(Great social hall od the Jewish community building, Samuel Sumbul arch. performing arts, classical music, rental, elections)

Image 5
„I would like it if the need for the monuments as I make them would end; I wish for my students to lose my subject matter; I would like it if they, the masters to be, would raise monuments to life and not death.“, … „A man does not die when he passes away, but when he is forgotten”.

Nandor Glid, Menorah in flames,1988-1990, Belgrade, Dorćol,
(Nandor Glid’s name and monument title do not feature on the new sculpture plaque. The treeline follows the line of the Jevrejska street, ending with the sculpture).

Image 6
The blunt ax – “…if the paths of destiny wouldn’t be unpredictable in their intricate architectures, where the end is never seen but only presaged, it could be said, despite his horrible end, that Karl Taube was born under a lucky star. (if our thesis is accepted in claiming that: the temporary suffering of the continuance is more valuable than the final emptiness of nothingness): those that sought to murder the revolutionary in Taube, those in Dachau, as well as those in distant Kolima, did not want, or could kill the doctor, the shaman in him. ”In connection with that, we will not indulge here in developing the heretic and dangerous thought that could be deduced from this example: that the illness, and its shadow, the death, are, especially in the eyes of a tyrant, only forms of emanation of the supernatural, and that shamans are magicians of sorts”: the logical consequence of a certain worldview.”

Danilo Kiš, Tomb for Boris Davidovič.
(Tabanovačka st, Belgrade, facing the Topovske šupe holding camp, where Kiš lived while writing “The tomb for Boris Davidovič and the “Anatomy lesson”).

Process of creation – Narrative

I grew up in Tbilisi. I am a part of it and my city is my main inspiration. Tbilisi has been a historic crossroad of different cultures – Georgian, Jewish, Armenian, Kurdish… and each of them gave unique colors, vibes
and flavors to its architecture, history and soul. I would never imagine Tbilisi without Jewish people, without beautiful Jewish details which you can recognize with one glance. The places featured in this project have
always been parts of my everyday walks.
The first place I choose for shooting was the Great Synagogue of Tbilisi (Photos #2, 6) as an inseparable part of my city. When I was a child this building seemed very mysterious to me. I always wanted to enter it and
find out what was happening there. As the Great Synagogue is considered to be the most important monument of Jewish culture in Tbilisi, of course, my project would not be complete without it. But what I wanted to do was to show not only walls and architectural details, but to show people who are connected to this building, as I think that only people make any building alive,ordinary people who go there to find peace of soul and mind.
The houses featured in photos 3 and 4 are located in Sololaki district, right bank of River Mtkvari – heart of old Tbilisi, which is very much damaged now but still looks proud and powerful. These houses are quite famous and
attract attention of many people. Personally, I really like three of them very much and also, I think that they symbolize the connection of Jewish culture in Tbilisi everyday life.
Next location, where the photo #6 is taken, is on Aghmashenebli Avenue – another central area of the city, on the left Bank of Mtkvari River. With diversifying the locations, I wanted to show that Jewish culture is not a part of one district only, but it is spread in the whole city.
My favorite location from the project is the Jewish cemetery in Isani district (photo #1). This is not something that attracts attention of many people. You will not appear there without knowing where you are going. I went there several times for shooting, to feel the whole atmosphere and find inspiration. I had the feeling that old grave stones would give me the key for my project and actually, they did. What I wanted to is the mystery of Jewish part of Tbilisi, the city I love, the city which has been a sweet home
from different people throughout many centuries.

Captions

1. There are many hidden, mysterious places in Tbilisi. Jewish cemetery is one of them – located in the multi ethnic neighborhood of Isani, between open market, school and residential area, it keeps many untold stories, unrealized dreams and names which have been faded away by winds and rains. This is one of the grave stones from the Tbilisi Jewish cemetery. It has no face, no name, just a stone with cracks and the Star of David. It reminds us of the soul of human – damaged but not broken, strong in faith. This stone is a key to the whole project – we all travel from our world to another one day. This stone with its memory could be in honor of anyone, who has been forgotten but not lost.

2. The Great Synagogue of Tbilisi, also known as the Georgian Synagogue, was built from 1895 to 1903 in an eclectic style by Georgian Jews. Since than it has been one of the most significant cultural and spiritual monuments in our Capital. Even though many Jewish people migrated from Georgia in 90s, this place still keeps its importance for the city as an inseparable part of its identity. These two boys, standing shoulder to shoulder, facing the gate of the Great Synagogue symbolize the present heading to the future – it is important to be together and to know where we are, where we want to go.

3. Old Tbilisi streets tell colorful stories of love, friendship and respect of Georgian and Jewish people living here, in this magical atmosphere. Looking at these balconies – the real treasures of my ancient city – I can imagine the first owners of the houses, Georgian and Jewish neighbors and their very special relationship, so typical for Tbilisi.

4. Many legends are connected to the house located in Machabeli Street #17, in the heart of Tbilisi. We do not know which of them are true, we also do not know much about the first owners who left Georgia when the Red Army invaded the country. There is one thing we know for sure – nowadays this is one of the most visited buildings in Tbilisi, which equally attracts locals and guests of the city.

5. Sometimes our shoulders become too heavy and when it happens, we try to find enlightenment in different ways. Sometimes we need to stay alone to face ourselves and God.

6. This wonderful house – a real pearl of Tbilisi architecture is located on the left bank of Mtkvari River, on Aghmashenebeli Avenue. The building which is used as a hotel now is one of the outstanding monuments keeping the history of Jewish people in Georgia.

Introduction

Towards the end of my six weeks long stay in Sighet, I decided to revisit the sites that intrigued me the most. By way of a silent contemplation, I then stood in each of these places, simply paying attention and reflecting on all that I have learned about this region’s Jewish past. My camera was
mounted on a tripod next to me and with a cable release in my hand I waited until I felt it was time.
The resulting photographs are a combination of fairly long exposures, between 1/25th and 1 full second, as well as multiple exposures of the same image. Everything is done in camera. There is hardly any post processing.
The pictures are in black and white because I wanted to maintain a certain timelessness. I wanted them to connect to the images that I kept finding in archives. I wanted to add something to that material, or rather to enter into some kind of a dialogue with it. The other part of this dialogue, as you will read in the captions, is with Elie Wiesel. His voice and his memories permeate each of these pictures.

My deepest gratitude goes to Alina Marincean. Her profound connection to Maramures and its Jewish history is what guided this work.

Captions

Image 1: Jewish Cemetery, Breb
9 images of 1 second exposures over a 9 minute period
Location: Breb, Maramures, 47°44’47.3″N 23°54’35.6″E

I returned to this little cemetery in Breb, because it embodied the very essence of what I kept thinking of as the Jewish landscape of Maramures. A brief encounter with one of the village’s residents a few weeks earlier brought me here initially. While searching for the cemetery in the meadows near the eastern edge of the village, I met a young shepherdess tending her sheep here. She would come here regularly she told me and this image of her and her herd in front of the cemetery in the midst of this spectacular landscape stayed with me. I urge you to come and find this cemetery.

Standing there, I was reminded that the landscape is not just an array of related geological features. While there is indeed a landscape out there of meandering rivers, grass covered hills, magnificent sunsets and autumn trees, there is also a landscape of ideas, of culture, of business, of politics and of history. That is to say, the landscape always brings together organisms, activities and things.

The impression that this was once a deeply Jewish landscape occupied my thoughts frequently.

Observing the trajectories of people and animals while taking this picture, I was reminded how every landscape is ultimately collapsing into movement and temporality. My former professor Tim Ingold once wrote that “human beings do not, in their movement, inscribe their life histories upon the surface of nature as do writers upon the page;” – that is to say that the landscape is not just a passive backdrop to our lives, but rather, that our “histories are woven, along with the life-cycles of plants and animals, into the texture of the surface itself.” I like this idea of weaving. I like to know that looking at this landscape and at this cemetery, is looking at the very lives of the people that inhabited it. I like that we all belong to the “same current of activity”1.

1 INGOLD, Tim. 2000. The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill, London: Routledge.

Image 2: Pillars of the Great Synagogue
1 image of 1 second exposure.
Location: Gheorghe Doja 75

Where the Great Orthodox Synagogue of Sighet once stood, only these twelve inconspicuous pillars and the fence remain today. Built in 1790, it must have been an impressive temple with several neighbouring structures: a school, the home of the rebbe and a large mikveh behind it. After the deportations, it was used as storage space for a short while and then burnt down entirely in 1945. There is a picture of it in ruins in the Yad Vashem archives, item ID 41084.

While there is a monument here, hidden from sight from this perspective, these pillars were for me the actual anchors of memory as the still visible traces connecting us to the city’s Jewish past. Standing there like austere guards from the twelve tribes of Israel, they could speak volumes about how the community thrived and prospered here. “You might think Sighet was one enormous synagogue”2 wrote Elie Wiesel somewhere in his memoirs.

If you visit this spot in mid April around 18:30 you’d notice that the light of the setting sun falls in a very particular angle, illuminating only this side of the street and especially the pillars. It is quite remarkable really.

While standing there alongside my camera, waiting for something to happen, I imagined a young man in a long distant past coming to the synagogue and noticing the exact same light. I imagined him standing there, observing, while others were coming and going to and from their studies and prayers. I imagined the chanting of the Torah coming from inside and various debates carried out in Yiddish in the yard; somewhere children were laughing. Through all of this, for more than a century, these pillars stood here in silence. They stood in silence while the synagogue was burning. Thou in silence they stood, they did not move. Like stubborn witnesses they stand here now to tell us this story. They have no temple to guard anymore, but they are guarding our memory.

2 WIESEL, Elie. 1995. All Rivers Run to the Sea: Memoirs. New York: Schocken Books.

Image 3: The first Rebbe
3 Images of 1/25th second exposures over 15 minutes
Location: Vasile Alecsandri No. 2

There is a school behind me and the entrance to the bustling city market is right around thecorner. It is a vivid spot in the middle of town. In front of me, in the yard of this brutalist apartment block, built during Romania’s communist period, stands a forlorn Jewish grave – a remnant from another era entirely. You might just barely see it over the fence if you go and visit this spot. The first Rebbe of Sighet, Zvi Ben Mose Abraham, remains buried here and his grave is perhaps the earliest trace of Jewish life that exists here. He died in 1771. Legend has it that when all the graves were to be relocated to the current Jewish cemetery, lightning struck, killing one of the oxen that were used for this venture, and thus prevented the moving. This unmovable grave felt to me like an anchor; like the centre of gravity around which the entire Jewish history of Sighet revolved. Standing here, I thought about the rise and fall of the Jews of Sighet between two pogroms that took place in the course of less than three centuries: many Jews arrived in Sighet as refugees from the persecutions under Khmelnytsky during the 17th century in neighbouring Ukraine. They then prospered here and grew to comprise 40% of the total population, only to then be caged in the ghettos and transported to their deaths in the camps of Birkenau-Auschwitz.

The horrific stories I read and heard from first person accounts, together with the few photographs of the abandoned streets of Sighet after the deportation that I found in archives, started to haunt me while standing here. For half an hour, I observed people passing by the Rebbe’s grave, going about their everyday lives. I kept remembering Elie Wiesel’s descriptions of the crowded ghetto and the dreadful living conditions that the Jews of Sighet had to endure. These cobble-stones bare witness. Elie Wiesel’s natal house is in fact just a few hundred meters away. In his descriptions of life in the ghetto, Wiesel mentioned that at first the Jews of Sighet actually considered the ghetto to be a good thing, where they could live among brothers in a small Jewish republic, away from the hating gazes of their former neighbours. You can imagine how unbelieve the stories of the atrocities of the death camps must have sounded in this “island of Maramures”, hidden away in the northern Carpathians. “The ghetto”, Wiesel writes, “was ruled by neither German nor Jew; it was ruled by delusion.”3

3 WIESEL, Eli. 2006 (1958). Night. New York: Hill and Wang.

Image 4: The Jewish Court
6 images of 1/13th second exposures over 10 minutes
Location: Piata Libertatii 10

We are right in the centre of Sighet, so to speak on High Street. Behind this gate in the entrance to the inner courtyard you’ll find the floor decorated with circular ornaments containing each a Magen David: the only traces that remind us of what was once a wealthy Jewish residence. Originally, as I was told by one of the current inhabitants, the entire building belonged to a single family by the name Kiselnik. Behind such gates, along this entire street, are what remains of the majestic courtyards of Sighet. Buildings once rich and luxuriant, some forming a gass, an alleyway that connected the centre with the Jewish neighbourhood behind it, are now all, if not in ruins like the famous Kahana Court right next to this one, mostly run down private apartments or social houses. “Sziget”, wrote Elie Wiesel in a message to the editors of the Sziget Book, “a flourishing and vibrant Jewish community filled with song and dream, destined to be carried away by a tempest of fire to an abyss of death under a dark and silent sky; (…) I remember the park, the Corso, the noisy Jewish Street and the small Gypsy Alley, the crowded courtyards, the modern houses of the wealthy and the miserable huts of the poor. All had their own shapes, their own destinies, their own stories, some sombre and impenetrable, other luminous and strangely joyous. Rabbis and merchants, tailors and cobblers, beggars and princes in disguise: all are still hunting my memory.”4

4 WIESEL, Elie. 2003. In: Alfassi, Netzer & Szalai (Eds.). The Heart Remembers: Jewish Sziget. Tel Aviv: Serfari.

Image 5: The Jewish House
6 images of 1/20th second exposures over 30 minutes
Location: Gheorghe Șincai 11

This particular abandoned house has been catching my attention ever since I first saw it six weeks ago. Perhaps it is something to do with the textures of the walls. Perhaps it is something about the size of the windows and various anachronistic details in its structure: in one of the walls around the corner for example, remnants of an arch that was later bricked up are still visible. This house, in the middle of what was once a rich Jewish neighbourhood in the centre of Sighet, stands with all those houses across Transylvania that people refer to as a “Jewish House”. I asked several passers-by if they knew what used to be here, and the answer was, if they knew, mostly this: casă evreiască (a Jewish house). This concept intrigued me ever since I first heard it. There is nothing Jewish about the house itself, you see. The Jewish House is a story. A house becomes a Jewish House only if the Jews who once dwelt in it were expelled and then killed. The Jewish house is not a Jewish House because of some particular style of architecture. The Jewish house is not a Jewish house because Jews live in it now. It is a house that was once inhabited by Jews, who were then expelled, gathered in the ghetto, transported to death camps and never returned. The house remained abandoned for a while and was then nationalised by the communists in 1948. Given to a trust to be managed and maintained, if it did not fall into ruins, it was rented out, to be used as storage space, apartments, or social housing. Only thus a house becomes a Jewish house. Although there are variations of this story, the narrative pattern remains similar. In recent years, the residents were allowed to purchase the properties from the Romanian state. Some are trying to sell their houses and the term “Jewish House” now appears in the sale adds on the internet. The Jewish house is mainly a house in the landscape of narrative and social memory.

Image 6: Akos’s Orchard
9 images of 1 second exposure over a 90 minute period
Location: 47°55’04.8″N 23°52’23.7″E

Crossing the river Iza, I climbed up the hills overlooking the city. I wanted to return to the little apple orchard I discovered upon my arrival here to take this last image of Sighet. I found myself a good spot among the twenty or so old twisted and wildly branching apple trees. You can see only two of them in the picture. The other ones surround me. Some of them, like the one to the right of the frame, were beginning to blossom with little white flowers, while others who might have already reached the end of their life cycle, remained barren. I liked the contrast between the rough dark tree skin and the delicate whites of the flowers. I liked that some of the broken branches that were still partially connected to the tree, were blossoming. I liked the silence and the view across the city on the surrounding peaks of snowy mountains. Many Jews of Sighet had their gardens in these hills. Judging by the age of some these trees I assumed they must have been planted about one hundred years ago. Later on, a chance encounter with a local topographer confirmed that these lands indeed belonged to a Jew by the name of Sekely Akos. I sat in Akos’s orchard, which I would urge you to visit, for over ninety minutes taking a one second exposure every ten minutes. In a sort of a meditation I watched the branches move in recurring gusts of wind, shifting between agitation and silence. I watched the clouds slowly spreading across the horizon. I observed the shadows moving eastwards ever so slowly. I thought of all that I have learned about the Jews of Sighet. I thought of how foreign they seemed to me upon my arrival, and how close I felt to them now; these sisters and brothers of my forefathers. I thought about the other images I took and the story I was trying to tell about them. My thoughts kept coming back to this single line that Elie Wiesel once wrote: “how was one to speak of them without trembling and a heart broken for all eternity?”5

5 WIESEL, Eli. 2006 (1958). Night. New York: Hill and Wang.

#1 The Old Cemetery

The entire Jewish population of Breslau perished in the Holocaust. The Old Jewish cemetery, one of two still existing in the City, during WW2 was turned into a battle field. Visitors still can notice destruction of tombs and bullet holes in the walls. However, many names and graves remain readable.

In 1945 German Breslau became Polish Wroclaw.

In 1975 abandoned and neglected, “The Old” cemetery, was incomporated by the Municipality to the list of  city heritage monuments. Since 1991 it got  an official  status of „Museum od Funeral Art”.

#2 The New Cemetery

According to the Jalta conference declaration (1945), the Polish eastern boarderlands were annexed by the Soviet Union. In return, Poland received partial territorial compensation in the west from Germany, incl. Breslau/Wroclaw.

The continuation of pre Holocaust German Jewish tradition was cut off. With the gap to fill, the small post War Jewish community was built mostly by Jewish refugees from the East.

Among two Jewish cemeteries in Wroclaw, „The New” one, houses the monument of the German-Jewish soldiers of the World War I. The cemetery is still functioning to this day.

#3 Stolpersteine

Brass plates with names of victims installed in pavements. They are a symbol of memory and recall traces of Nazi victims persecuted in the Holocaust. Its a part of a larger European project initiated by German Artist Gunter Demnig. They usually list the names, dates and places they were killed. The plates are installed in front of the victims houses.  In Wroclaw, unlike other Polish towns where this project wasn’t widely adopted, there are 4 places with Stolpersteine.  The project includes 27 European countries. This makes the Stolpersteine project the world’s largest decentralized memorial.

#4 The White Stork Synagogue

The only synagogue that survived the destruction of WW2 was the 19-century – White Stork Synagogue. In 2006, The Bente Kahan Foundation was established by the Norwegian-Jewish performing artist with the same name. The Foundation restored the badly damaged building and transformed it into a vibrant Centre for Jewish Culture and Education open for all. The synagogue also serves as a prayer house for the Jewish community.

#5 Jewish Sentiments

In current Poland, sentiments toward multi-cultural history of the country, including the significant Jewish contribution are ever present.  Jewish culture festivals, cafes and restaurants styled resembling the „old good times” is an example that „Jewish” memories sells well.

#6 Gaps

 Emptiness. The most typical symbol of pre-War Breslau as it pertains to Jewish heritage..

Most of glorious synagogues were destroyed. Most of Jewish buildings changed their identity. The place where once, the Jewish Theological Seminarium of modern Jewish scholarship proudly stood, was turn into  a parking lot.

The building and institution which once was a beacon of modern Jewish scholarship is now conmemorated only by an easy-to-be-missed,  plaque with inscription testifying to its fading memory.

The project “Les pedres ho saben tot” (The Stones know everything) is about an imaginary promenade around the neighborhood el Call. At first, we discovered the neighborhood thought the narrowness of its streets. From there, the series continues its wanderings as a journey.

Particular emphasis is placed upon the stones, acting as a metaphor for the passage of time, for memory, for the wisdom they have been accumulating over the centuries. Stones also allow us to speak about all the historical episodes they have experienced, as we can see on walls surface different stratifications, the accumulation of times that we find in el Call.

The end of the ensemble refers to the painful episode that took place around 1390, when the Jews were persecuted and forced to move to the Gironella Tower, the highest point in the city. The last images are made at this place, pushing us to that moment, trying to pass on the experiences lived during that confinement.