Life after survival ­ Holocaust survivors and their families in Israel

Although the sur­vivors of the Holo­caust were saved when they were lib­er­at­ed more than sev­en­ty years ago, severe trau­ma con­tin­ues to shape their lives to this day. Life after sur­vival – what does it entail for the sur­vivors and their fam­i­lies? How do the hor­rors of per­se­cu­tion con­tin­ue to have an impact today? What influ­ence does soci­ety’s han­dling of the trau­ma­tiz­ing past have on indi­vid­u­als’ abil­i­ty to come to terms with it? For many months, pho­tog­ra­ph­er Hele­na Schät­zle, com­mis­sioned by the Israeli aid orga­ni­za­tion Amcha, accom­pa­nied Holo­caust sur­vivors and their fam­i­lies in Israel. Images and quotes from three gen­er­a­tions reveal the emo­tion­al traces of a past that is still present. Moments marked by deep lone­li­ness, fear, grief, and the asso­ci­at­ed thoughts, feel­ings, and behav­ioral pat­terns. But also by hope, by a regained joy in the present, and by a pro­found­ly impres­sive vital­i­ty and affir­ma­tion of life.

chezweitz not only designed the cat­a­log but also con­ceived the trav­el­ing exhi­bi­tion of Hele­na Schät­zle’s mov­ing pho­tographs, with its first stop at the Fed­er­al For­eign Office in Berlin. The exhi­bi­tion’s lay­out, a labyrinthine cor­ri­dor, evokes a forced path, at the core of which the Holo­caust, as the cen­tral ele­ment, forms the heart of this con­stel­la­tion of remem­brance. Life paths marked by the unimag­in­able, yet lives that con­tin­ued and con­tin­ue, so that a path out of the labyrinth, into the open, pow­er­ful­ly illus­trates the after­life, the sur­vival and con­tin­u­a­tion of existence.