Friday 12 June 2020

The Lonka Project

“We were watching TV, December 2018, there was a report on American news channel CNN. They’d done a survey in France and found that around 15% of French people had no idea what the Holocaust was, which was very shocking to both of us. We watched this and thought how can this be? France was occupied by the Nazis for four years during the war and split the country up, so we just started thinking what can we do as photographers to remedy this as a way of Holocaust commemoration and remembrance, to increase awareness in an educational capacity?” explains Jim Hollander speaking on the phone from his home on the outskirts of Jerusalem, Israel. Equally astounding, in a recent report by Claims Conference: ‘While there were over 40,000 concentration camps and ghettos in Europe during the Holocaust, almost half of Americans (45 percent) cannot name a single one – and this percentage is even higher amongst Millennials.’


Jim and his wife, Rina Castelnuovo, are both professional photographers. Jim, now 70 has worked for United Press International, European Press Agency and Reuters. Rina has photographed for The New York Times in Israel since the mid-nineties, as well as Time magazine, Stern, and the Associated Press previously. As well as general news, both have covered Holocaust survivors and associated events in Israel. They hit upon the idea of reaching out to the community they knew, at first photojournalists, asking them if they could volunteer to do a portrait of an Holocaust survivor. The response was overwhelming. No direct guidance was given except to avoid a simple headshot. “What struck us is the survivors have a powerful will to live that many people don’t have. They survived such horrendous years of torture and suffering and they’re powered to get on with life and to live and enjoy life - we expressed that to the photographers - we’d like a portrait of their power to live.”

The number of portraits received is heading towards 250, taken by some of the world’s leading photographers including Roger Ballen, Stuart Franklin, Steve McCurry, Gilles Peress, Alec Soth, Peter Turnley, Heidi Levine, Jane Evelyn Atwood, I could go on. The collection is called The Lonka Project, a tribute to Rina's mother, Dr. Eleonora ‘Lonka’ Nass (1926-2018). It’s a compelling testament to the power of living. Attara and Yosef Dekel, photographed in Hadera, Israel, touch hands sat on a bed surrounded by stuffed soft toys. Adam Han-Górski poses wearing sports kit at an outdoor gym in Plymouth, Minnesota, USA. Hungarian Olympic gymnastics champion, Agnes Keleti, stretches on her bed at home in Budapest, Hungary, her legs as wide as her grin. Anne Frank’s stepsister, Eva Schloss, is photographed in London stood by a string of 90th birthday cards. The Lonka Project isn’t trying to photograph Holocaust survivors across the globe but a few key countries remain important and elusive; a survivor can’t be located in Spain, a few survivors live in Portugal but a photographer has not been assigned.


Has Jim a favourite portrait? “There’s one I thought very lovely I would consider for the cover of the book [there are plans for a book, hopefully by the end of 2020, a German publisher Jim met at Paris Photo has expressed an interest]. It’s by Marissa Roth, who photographed Dorothy Bohm in London, the mistress of photojournalism photography in England. Bohm, who is in her late 90s, was friends with Henri Cartier-Bresson and the Magnum crowd in the late 1940s. She was a survivor, her parents were able to get her out of Europe and bring her to London. She became a very well known photographer in the UK.” Bohm was closely involved in founding The Photographers’ Gallery, London and has published over a dozen books. In 2009 she was appointed Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society. Her portrait has her stood stoically behind her Rolleiflex camera.

Alongside each portrait is an accompanying story. Some are vague in detail, others are devastatingly poignant. Ralph Hakman photographed by Barbara Davidson: ‘Ralph regularly observed his SS supervisor driving to the crematoria in a Red Cross van, donning a mask and emptying three canisters of Zyklon B crystal pellets into designated ports. Ralph heard the screams of the dying Jews, and then 15 minutes later, when the doors were opened, he saw the bodies tumbling out.’ Miriam Ziegler photographed by Moe Doiron: ‘When Miriam was nine, all prisoners were put on cattle cars and deported to Auschwitz where Miriam was separated from her parents. Her father was killed in the gas chambers. Miriam was tattooed with the number A16891, shaved and was kept in the barracks where experiments were performed on the children. Miriam managed to survive until Auschwitz was liberated on January 27, 1945.’ Film director, Roman Polanski, is casually snapped by Franck Leclerc, a jacket hooked over his shoulder. ‘ Roman’s mother, Bula, expecting a child, was taken from her family and sent to death in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.’ The stories are distilled horrors of man.

Many of the portraits show the survivor with their identification tattoo but not every survivor portrait is from the death camps. Photographers can interpret holocaust survivor as they like. The Lonka project includes people who were hidden underground, in forests, homes, monasteries, nunneries, and fled to other countries. Ben Frenecz, photographed by Andy Anderson, is not a Holocaust survivor but he is responsible for hundreds of thousands of survivors. Born in Hungary on March 11, 1920, Frenecz was an investigator of Nazi war crimes after World War II, becoming Chief Prosecutor for the United States at the Einsatzgruppen Trial, one of the twelve military trials held by the U.S. at Nuremberg, Germany. All of the 22 men on trial were convicted: 13 received the death sentence, four were implemented. This wider range of stories increases the educational value of the project.

Photographers contributing to The Lonka Project have clearly been affected as Marty Umans recounts in her experience photographing Samuel Beller, aged 94, at his home in New York: ‘I had a very emotional shoot yesterday. In working through the weeks and process of setting up this portrait session I had not given much thought to what to expect emotionally when talking and spending time with our subject. I have traveled the world and photographed children in Africa for Operation Smile, Ethiopian Jews being resettled in Israel for Hadassah, teens in NYC for Avenues for Justice for over 20 years but never a 94-year-old in Brooklyn who still lives his past like it is today. It was a rewarding two hours spent with an amazing survivor and example of the unsung heroes of the Holocaust. Samuel is open and willing to share his experiences which are horrendous. He lives them every day without the ability to block them out. I did not expect that. It took him decades before he was able to share his experiences but I don’t think it has been a healing, more of a cause, and at 94 he doesn’t have the same energy to share his story. I am grateful for his two hours and cherish my time.’

93 portraits were exhibited in 100ft of space at the United Nations in New York on the 27th January, National Holocaust Day. More exhibitions are scheduled at the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Centre, Moscow, in Berlin, maybe South Africa and other venues around New York. There will be a month long outdoor show in Jerusalem.

Two photojournalists working in stressful circumstances, I had to ask Jim how they have stayed married for 35 years.? “We’re both photographers covering the news, we used to work quite a lot together during the First Intifada (Palestinian protests and violent riots against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza), and some of the wars, the Scud war in the 1990s. Rina works with The New York Times and I work with Reuters and EPA, so we’re both out covering the story of the day. Israel being a very small country, you can be a conflict photographer on the front line all day long, then an hour and a half later your back at home with the kids, you have dinner and forget all about what you saw during the day and you become a family. It’s easy to get back home, so its not like you’re away on assignment for months and months at a time.”

Rina’s polish parents were both survivors. It was something that was never spoken about. They used code words when speaking about it with their survivor friends. They never sat Rina and her sister down and explained what they went through, only opening up a little more when Rina was much older on a trip to Poland, visiting family homes and concentration camps, five of which her mother survived including Auschwitz and Belsen.

On the 20th March, 88-year-old Holocaust survivor Aryeh Even, became the first Israeli to die of coronavirus. The Lonka Project has never been more relevant and urgent.

A version of this article first appeared in the 9 May 2020 Issue of Amateur Photographer magazine

Wednesday 10 June 2020

The Longest Week

Hello dear reader. I’m writing this during a week when 20,000 troops are on standby to help deal with the coronavirus crisis. Schools have shut down and exams cancelled. Social distancing has been implemented; cafes, restaurants, pubs, clubs, gyms and bingo halls ordered to close. Supermarket shelves are being stripped clean. The worst in society are doing bad, the best are stepping up. Lockdown seems imminent. The Queen released a statement reminding us that ‘our nation’s history has been forged by people and communities coming together’ (as long as it’s no closer than two meters). Prime Minister Boris Johnson is ‘absolutely confident that we can send coronavirus packing in this country.’ The situation is serious, the situation is changing rapidly. It will have changed again by the time you read this.

The photo-industry is being decimated. It will recover but associated businesses and individuals might not. Photography shows, events and exhibitions have closed, cancelled or postponed. Camera manufacturers expect to take a big hit. Work has flatlined. The world has been reset. BC will come to mean something different. I am living my story, you have yours, I hope it’s not too terrifying. I reached out to a few to hear theirs.



“I’ve never know anything like it, the work has just dropped off, it’s like shaking a dead Christmas tree. A month of work gone in four days, upward of 15 jobs. One morning, in the space of 25 minutes, four jobs cancelled,” explains freelance photographer, Matthew Horwood from his home in Cardiff. “I’m just getting used to not having jobs to do, not having to be somewhere at 9 O’Clock - not having any work is really strange.” Matthew was staff photographer at the The Western Mail before being made redundant in 2014 and thrown into the world of PR and event photography. With no PR or event photography to do, he’s being proactive shooting news stock for Getty Images. “It’s a bit bleak to be honest, going out and shooting the same thing over and over again and having the same conversations. I am at least free to do what I want want.” He says with a chink of optimism.“I don’t think every photographer’s going to get through it without doing other jobs. It’s very bleak,” he adds. Does he expect to be able to photograph himself out of adversity? “I don’t know how long it’s going to go on for. Depends whether there’s new opportunities for pictures every day. Every photographer’s going to be doing this, there’s probably more competition than before, people who did PR and news are now just doing news. It does make it difficult.”

Fashion and celebrity photographer Jay McLaughlin has a strategy. “Everything is postponed until further notice. I had enough to pay all my bills. Now it’s like, what can I sell?” What he can sell are his books: Bailey’s Stardust, Vanity Fair 100 Years: From the Jazz Age to Our Age, his Peter Lindbergh and Mario Testino’s. “Do I need books when I have an internet of pictures, sure they’re nice to have but are they necessary?”

©Peter Dench

If Jay, is selling photo books, is anyone buying them? “Sales are going through the floor. In the last five days I haven’t sold a book online. On a normal week, 5 or 6 books a day this time of year,” says Colin Wilkinson, who founded Bluecoat Press in 1992. “2008 was the first shake up of the book publishing industry, the financial crisis along with the growth of the internet meant traditional bookshops and outlets vanished very quickly, publishers had to find new ways of selling and develop an internet presence. The problem now is people have got other priorities. He has one book potentially funded and the book, Juvenile Jazz Bands by Tish Murtha, is funded. “We hit the £10K crowdfunding target in two days, since then, in two weeks around another £1.5K, normally it would be treble. It’s quite obvious people are not spending. If in a years time we’re in a world recession, I would probably think there’s no point in continuing which is a great shame as I have six brilliant projects lined up which I really want to do.” These include books by Jim Mortram, Margaret Mitchell and Carolyn Mendelsohn.

I talk to Carolyn just after she’s rescued her eldest son from the University of Manchester party scene and is understanding about the situation at Bluecoat Press. With her three children safely back home, she’s being creative in the circumstances, making formal portraits of her daughter Poppy on the eve of her fourteenth birthday and snapping her as they walk around Asda supermarket. “My son Sam, who’s 15, is writing a journal and I’m taking simple domestic photographs. We’re going to put them together and make some kind of blog. It’s really for ourselves and I’m sure lots of people will be doing similar things.”  I hope they are and in time, can make a small but significant contribution to this extraordinary chapter of history.

Bluecoat Press

Also this week (it’s been a long week), The Church of England has restricted wedding ceremonies to five people. Does this include a photographer? I ask Lee Glasgow. “I’ve a wedding tomorrow and the registrar has said I’m not allowed in the room, only close family. I’m planning to set the camera up on a tripod and take pictures remotely from the room next door. It’s not ideal but a solution. I’ve advised the couple to hold the kiss for a second longer as the remote app is a lot slower.” Lee photographed over 50 weddings in 2019, 38 are booked for 2020 but is likely to reduce, he has taken £20K of deposits. “In the wedding industry we call them booking fees - apparently, legally, you don’t have to pay booking fees back because you’ve done an amount of work.” He’s not money grabbing, just being sensible. Lee is advising clients to call him for a conversation, keep things verbal, on a case by case basis, see what can be worked out amicably. He’s stepped in and volunteered a few hours of his time to photograph a wedding at short notice. “In wedding world, I think we’re up against it anyway because everyone’s a photographer, do weddings need a photographer, do they see the value a photographer brings? The price of quality cameras is coming down, picture quality of mobile phones is going up so the market has been shrinking for a long long time.” Lee is savvy and established and expects to be in business next year, weddings will still go ahead, just not now. Other photographers may not be so fortunate. “I know a number of photographers that want to work one day a week and left good jobs to become a wedding photographer and now realise the industry might be disappearing, they’re going to be buggered.”

©Peter Dench

It’s not just professional photographers who are in turmoil, amateur photographers and those studying it across the United Kingdom are being affected: projects have been suspended, some have collapsed. Camera clubs, many who have members in the vulnerable category for coronavirus, have temporarily closed. Harrogate Photographic Society cancelled a coach trip to Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool. Open Eye won’t miss out out on 40 plus visitors because it closed their doors to protect staff, artists and clients. Likewise The Photographers Gallery London, Side Gallery Newcastle and Anne McNeill, Director and Curator at Impressions Gallery Bradford, made the decision to close the building. “It’s really important to stress how crucial the building is to us, it’s not just four white walls, it’s a community space as well. The reason I do it is for photographers and visitors to experience photography in real life and to have a meeting place, we wouldn’t want to lose that.” Enterprising Anne, gave an impassioned message to her staff as they left to work remotely from home. ““Use this time as thinking time, we might come up with a great new idea, we might not, that doesn’t matter - work out a strategy how we can build up our virtual community and reach out to all photographers, what learning advice we can offer for free, are there any paid opportunities we can do online for photographers. Even when the building opens again, hopefully this new way of working will stay with us.”

©Peter Dench

From the gloom there always springs hope and the photography industry has sprung high. There’s a Photographers Under Quarantine Facebook Group, group video chats, free expert advise across all social media or at a knock down price with the proceeds going to charity. “Every situation is neutral, nothing is good, nothing is bad, it’s only how you feel about it that makes it good or bad - you can choose. We have forced free time, if you cannot work what can photographers do?” Ponders Jay McLaughlin, a keen reader of philosophy and influenced by Marcus Aurelius. I ask on social media what photographers can do? ‘Review hard drives, memory cards, back up important images, update websites, improve SEO, make prints, write more blogs, record vlogs, keyword stock, be kind.’

Stay safe, sane and sanitised - thanks for reading and hope to see you smiling on the other side.

A version of this article first appeared in the 11 April 2020 issue of Amateur Photographer magazine