This new photography exhibition is sponsored by Art at Watson and features the photography of Leslie Starobin taken during a “roots journey” to Poland, coupled with memories from family members who survived the Holocaust.

Exhibit open February 13 - May 30

Stephen Robert ’62 Hall, 280 Brook Street, The Agora

Artist statement:

“Looming in the Shadows of Lodz” was inspired by a roots journey I made to Poland in 2019 with my husband and children. We traveled on the 75th anniversary of our relatives’ deportation to Auschwitz from the Lodz Ghetto, the last one to be liquidated by the Nazis. In Lodz, I photographed the Altman family residences, the cemetery where they hid from the Nazis, and the Radegast train station where they boarded cattle cars to the death camp.

After visiting Auschwitz, we flew to Israel, where my husband’s aunt lives. At 95, Dorka

Berger (née Altman) is the only relative alive to contribute to this multi-generational project. She poured over our photos and film footage, revealing new memories of the past.

In July 1945, when 15-year-old Dorka penned her “Diary of Dwojra Altman,” she was haunted by the atrocities she witnessed, and she was mourning the loss of her parents. Now, she aspires to fulfill Jewish tradition — “l’haggid” — “And you should tell your children.”

My “photo narratives” are framed by quotes I collected over three decades from Dorka and her older sister, Tola (my mother-in-law). By layering memories of the past onto visual depictions of the present, I am asking viewers to shift between text and image and between memory and place as they view these topographies of trauma across time and space.

When speaking in Hebrew throughout our conversations, Dorka and Tola referred to Nazis as “Germans.” I chose to adhere to their language in the photo narratives as they were speaking about their past experiences.

Made with generous support from the Combined Jewish Philanthropies Arts & Culture Community Impact Grant Fund, “Marching All Night: The Testimony of Dorka Berger née Altman” will screen on opening night. It can also be seen by scanning the QR code. Ori Segev, who is the third generation to inherit and tell this family story, filmed and edited the video.

This new photography exhibition is sponsored by Art at Watson.  The photographs by Robert Nickelsberg offer a visual historical record of the first years of the civil war in El Salvador that is significant in the range and depth of its coverage of the conflict and illuminating in its critical view of the United States’ involvement, which was an important test of Cold War counterinsurgency strategy after the Vietnam war. The images of the violence and death form the foundational period that forced many Salvadorans to flee north to the U.S. creating the chaos and political gridlock along the U.S.-Mexican border.

Exhibit open February 19 to May 30, 2025

2nd Floor, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street