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Faces of Survival: Virginia Holocaust Museum Wants You to Remember What Survivors of Genocide Looks Like

Sarah Honosky | June 22, 2018

Topics: Dean Whitbeck, Hampton Roads, Jewish heritage, richmond, The United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, Tidewater, Unite the Right, Virginia Holocaust Museum, WWII

In an age when 22 percent of American millennials said they haven’t heard of the Holocaust or are confused as to what the historical event was, “Faces of Survival” meets the viewer head on with a powerful reminder of what modern genocide looks like.

The Virginia Holocaust Museum’s (VHM) newest portrait exhibit features more than a dozen Holocaust survivors currently living the Tidewater (Hampton Roads) Region. The exhibit was the creation of photographer Dean Whitbeck in partnership with The United Jewish Federation of Tidewater.

The same survey reported by the Washington Post also found that two-thirds of American millennials cannot identify what Auschwitz was – the most notorious of all the Nazi death camps based in Poland – that exterminated close to 1.1 million people. Yet despite the increasingly modern relevance, contemporary knowledge of the genocide that killed more than 6 million Jews during World War II is deeply lacking.

Angela Rueda, Assistant Curator at the Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond, said the photography exhibit is a crucial part of preserving these stories and legacies, especially stories that might be overlooked.

“It’s about memorializing these individuals,” said Rueda. “Unfortunately, Holocaust survivors are passing away…so [it is] part of the process of preserving their memory, their experience, their legacy, what their history means for future generations.”

The portrait exhibit is a striking installation in the renovated space that houses the VHM. Once an American Tobacco Company warehouse, the massive brick building is a cavernous and winding dedication to the victims and survivors of the Holocaust.

“Faces of Survival” forces its audience to be eye-to-eye with Virginia’s own survivors; a move that not only allows for a naked display of humanity, but holds the viewer accountable for a narrative that too many people don’t want to acknowledge.

“To step inside an 88 to 90 year old’s [experience], to see life through their eyes, it was very powerful,” said Whitbeck. “When I’m photographing survivors, I’m also photographing an immense amount of trauma.”

The portraits are shot without any real background, free of noise or color. There is a simplicity and intimacy that speaks volumes about the nuance and character of each individual. “I weed out context and atmosphere,” said Whitbeck. “Because at the core, what I am focusing on is compassion, dignity, and humility.”

While the modern memory of the atrocities of the Holocaust are fading, the historical realities of anti-Semitism, prejudice, and pervasive violence is far from disappearing. In fact, anti-Semitic hate crimes are on the rise in the US, up 57 percent in 2017 from 2016. The modern narrative reflects a regressive turn back to the authoritarianism and fascist mentality of the 1930s and 40s, along with the complacency that accompanies it. Something the Jewish writer and philosopher, Hanna Arendt, once referred to as “the banality of evil” when covering the Nazi war crimes trial of Adolph Eichmann, one of the architects of the holocaust.   

As a more modern example, Rueda says the VHM is turning their focus to programming surrounding Charlottesville’s Unite the Right rally last summer; where white supremacist James Fields Jr killed counter-protester Heather Heyer.

“Especially today with a lot of the rhetoric that’s out there, you can see a connection between… the ideology from the Holocaust to Neo-Nazi groups,” said Rueda. “We’re working to preserve these stories because they are relevant today, unfortunately.” She went on to explain that one of their core missions is to encourage tolerance through education.

According to Rueda, their hope is that, “Sharing these stories and connecting it to what is going today, hate speech and continuation of anti-semitism, can combat that ideology and show that these are people—like you, like me, like everybody else. They have their own stories, their own struggles.”

Whitbeck, however, stressed that the connection goes deeper than just the rise of neo-Nazi groups in the US. Because so many of the Tidewater survivors came to the US as immigrants – many of them Russian survivors who fled Moscow – it opens a crucial dialogue about refugees and immigration.

“There’s a very interesting throughline between contemporary refugees, immigrants, and this conversation about Russian Holocaust survivors,” said Whitbeck.  “[With] the state of affairs now, in our country and globally, it’s so important that we see that synergy from 40-50 years ago and ask ourselves: are we repeating the same humanitarian crisis over?”

Whitbeck focuses his portrait photography on documenting the dignity and courage found in marginalized communities, be it Holocaust survivors or working with Reestablish Richmond to create portraits of refugees who have sought sanctuary in Richmond away from their home countries as a result of war.

“There’s a way in which you look at what defines the survivorship,” said Whitbeck. “The survivorship is rooted in persecution, of being forced out of your home. This is not a choice.”

Each survivor of the Tidewater Holocaust portrait series has a different story, from fleeing their home to living in hiding to escape persecution and death. While the topic is unspeakably heavy, Whitbeck references the impact and power of these kinds of individual interactions in a 2017 Ted Talk.

Since many of his Tidewater participants didn’t speak English, he said, “Half the time I just had to work with this way of communicating kinesthetically and physically,” going on to say that sometimes he was less a photographer and more a visual communicator.

While it’s easy to get stuck on the importance of the story, on the context and narrative that surrounds each individual, Whitbeck makes a point to focus on that single moment of authentic truth that a photograph can capture. “Storytelling is big, it’s macro. Truth is really a much more condensed and micro way of looking at emotions through the lens of the camera.”

It’s through this truth, this humanity, this head-on, face-to-face interaction between viewer and survivor, our present day narrative can begin to re-acknowledge the weight of our country’s recent and debilitating history.

The exhibit runs through July 29 at the Virginia Holocaust Museum on 21st and Cary. Admission is free and open to the public.

Quill Theatre and VA War Memorial Present ‘For the Duration: Letters from Home’ Tuesday

Madelyne Ashworth | October 16, 2017

Topics: historial reading, Quill Theatre, Virginia War Memorial, WWII

Quill Theatre and the Virginia War Memorial are bringing history to life and putting audiences in the middle of the most pivotal war in history by partnering to present “For the Duration: Letters from Home.”

The one-night-only event features real letters from WWII soldiers and their loved ones back home, collected by James Triesler, a historian and the director of education at the Virginia War Memorial.

“I really wanted to focus the reading on the relationships between these people,” said Pam Webb, communications and marketing director for Quill Theatre. “It’s not just husbands and wives or love letters, there are letters from friends, there are letters between brothers and sisters, fathers and sons, daughters. I really wanted to humanize them and have them come alive. There are breakups, there are fathers getting to know their children through letters, there are letters informing of soldiers being killed in action.”

Quill Theatre has been doing historical readings for some time, but it has only gained momentum in the past four years. Starting in 2014, they began a historical reading series carrying a different theme every year with a focus on Richmond.

Although not all the letters in the performance are from WWII Richmond veterans, the majority of them are from Virginia. Some of the letters were written by veterans who still live in Richmond today, such as Joe Keller, a resident of Henrico County. Several are from different places around the United States, and a couple are from British soldiers as well.

Joe Keller, 1st Marine Division, Japan

“I just wanted to show what these soldiers to really come alive and give them a voice,” Webb said. “It gives us a perspective of the war that we might have never seen before.”

Over 70 letters or excerpts from letters will be featured during the performance. A cast of four actors will be reading the letters, while James Triesler acts as narrator to provide context and information about each of the individuals in the collection. The performance will include an audio-visual component as well, so audiences may see photos of the original letters.

“To see these real letters from soldiers and their families was really incredible,” said Webb. “I started reading some and I just got hooked.”

Webb and Triesler, who also co-wrote the narration, have been putting the project together for the past year. All the letters were acquired by Triesler from interviewing veterans or from the “It Took a War” project at Clover Hill High School, and many of the original letters are currently on display at the Virginia War Memorial.

“It’s not going to be just a dramatic, tissues-ready cry fest for the whole thing,” Webb said. “There’s a lot of really funny or amusing things that pop up in letters that are there. We try and balance it all out between the drama and the comedy of it.”

The one-time performance is Tues., October 17, 7 p.m. at the Virginia War Memorial, 621 S. Belvidere St. Tickets are $12 for members, $15 for non-members.

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