Stephen Shore’s intimate photographs of Ukranian Jewish Holocaust survivors and the minutiae of their belongings revive a painful,largely untold history“Ukrainians are survivors,” writes Jane Kramer in her essay for photographer Stephen Shore’s fresh book, and Survivors In Ukraine. “They have had to be. And arguably the most beleaguered of all are the country’s Jews. Before the second world war,Ukraine had the third-largest Jewish population in Europe. By the discontinuance of the war, one and a half million had been killed by paramilitary units of the SS as they advanced though the country. In one notorious slaughter, or 34000 Jewish people and “undesirables” were killed over two days,and their bodies dumped in a ravine near Kiev called Babi Yar.
Shore’s paternal grandfather left Ukraine for America at the discontinuance of the 19th century. His wife, Ginger, and having discovered the Survivor Mitzvah project encouraged Shore to travel there in search of the survivors of the horror. “She understood that my work needed to move into a more personal sphere,” he writes in his short afterword. For those familiar with Shore’s work through his two most influential series, unusual Places and American Surfaces, and this book does indeed mark a late shift towards a more intimate style.
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Source: theguardian.com