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WHAT WAS WAS
Reemergence of Jewish Life in Eastern Europe

I have encountered the declaration, “What Was, Was,” repeatedly during a wide-ranging search to understand how the Holocaust has shaped my life-world. The saying is rich in the precise economy of complicated thought and terse expression characteristic of the Yiddishe culture. The few words bespeak not only a sad and knowing recognition of an irreversible reality — but also a determination to regather a civilizing momentum that had been scattered in the purges and their Cold War aftermath of the last century. The only appropriate response is an evolved and adapted reassertion of cultural authenticity, however long a time the process might require.

The quest began as a subjective inquiry into the collective experience of loss. My work not only responds to my family’s desperate struggles with the Holocaust, but it also alludes to the more general problem of how the Holocaust and the subsequent Soviet regime have shaped much of human experience during the tumultuous 20th century.

I set out by rediscovering the traces of my immediate family from Poland. This inquiry led me to photograph some of the remaining Jewish communities of Ukraine where faith, history and artistry, horror, toil, and rebirth collide to form a jagged landscape of human experience. My current project examines and documents some aspects of the reemergence of Jewish life in Poland and in Ukraine. This effort originated in the form of black-and-white real-film still photography and has expanded, more recently, to involve digital-color camerawork, video shooting, and oral history.

The Imperative
I have come to see the historical importance of documenting life in the remaining Jewish communities. Contemporary Judaism in Eastern Europe comes into view as a hybrid, blended from lingering traditions, memories, and social experiences — conveying both a sense of loss and a spirit of regeneration. The survivors of the Holocaust are dwindling in number, their stories seldom preserved in any depth. The shtetls — small towns, villages, hamlets, with their concentrations of Yiddishe tradition and memory — are in a state of transformation: Many aspects are vanishing while there is a renewal in the larger towns and in the cities.

The town of Drohobich, in Western Ukraine, is an important example of my overall project on the survival of the culture. Since 2005, I have been documenting a synagogue in transition in Drohobich. This synagogue, once the largest in (what used to be) Poland, was used as a furniture store during the Soviet regime. The structure later sustained extensive fire damage and subsequently was inhabited by teen gang gatherings. Following its gradual rehabilitation from these prolonged phases of misappropriation, in October 2007, the local Jewish community celebrated the High Holiday of Sukkoth there for the first time in 60 years. I was fortunate to be there to photograph this event, and to be able to give a measure of service back to the community in the form of an exhibition at the city museum.

About the Process
I photograph primarily in black-and-white film, using cameras of various formats. I prepare finished prints in silver gelatin and/or platinum/palladium. I have added a digital camera, to photograph in color. The digital process allows a more spontaneous and un-meditative approach — a heightened naturalism, in contrast with the more contemplative nature of the real-film images. Digital photography also provides a greater efficiency in producing editorial work for publications and presentations, and in adding color works for exhibition.

I plan to continue this project as part of a determination to examine the passing of the older generation — juxtaposed with the rebirth of the Jewish community in intermingled cultural, religious, and artistic terms. Although the subject matter is eternal, the project itself is time-sensitive because the older generation is passing on, in the midst of a resurgence of customs and traditions. Two of the people I had photographed have died recently.

A key objective is to examine the survival of Jewish art (including theatre and music, not to mention the Yiddishe language itself) as an integral part of a community’s present and future existence. The long-term objectives involve plans for a book and a traveling exhibition — both serving to raise popular awareness and to celebrate the extraordinary community of survivors and advancers of the culture in Poland and Ukraine. The prospect of creative collaboration is welcome.

- Loli Kantor