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Monday 7 March 2011

putting a face to the name

So I've been researching mainly the personal approach/influences in what I know of the Holocaust, reading and flicking through various books such as 'Auschwitz and the Allies' by Martin Gilbert, but whilst visiting a Jewish library in North West London, I came across various files with lists and lists of names. Having visited Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Israel which is the largest Holocaust memorial museum and exhibition, there is spherical room with a high dome shaped ceiling, and the entire room is covered entirely with black and white pre war images of it's victims. No names, just hundreds and hundreds of pictures. I felt that there was a serious emotional distance between the images and myself and that sense of ''en masse'' is what in a strange sense, conveyed enough of a message, to understand and reflect on how individually important each image is, and how many people would in my own life, grieve over the death of a loved one, nevermind a murdered innocent love one.  So with this concept already planted in my mind, I came across a list of names, no photographs, unlike the aforementioned, the complete opposite, just names. I think using this distance of the unknown subject in war images of the deceased and maybe names and stories also I'm going to explore the differences or the connections/relationships between the face and the name.

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