MAY THEIR MEMORY BE A BLESSING

2022

ANNE ZAHALKA with DORIT BRAUN
HIDDEN ROOKWOOD SCULPTURES

10 SEPT – 9 OCT 2022

Other contributors: Vivien and Dennis Altman, Jane Becker, Ella Drefus, Juno Gemes, Su Goldfish, Jeanie Kable, Julie Robb, Monica Robinson, Alisa and Thommy Sharon, Sue and Sandy Saxon, Leslie Solar, Naomi and Anita Ullmann
{ Together we hand-wrote their names, for our relatives who had neither the dignity of a grave, family to mourn them nor the respect of ceremony. Naming them allows us to honour and commemorate them.
– ANNIE ZAHALKA 2022 >>

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This artwork remembers those in our families who perished during the Holocaust. Together we hand-wrote their names, for our relatives who had neither the dignity of a grave, family to mourn them nor the respect of ceremony. Naming them allows us to honour and commemorate them. Each headstone bears a message inscribed in gold. Pebbles have been placed at the base, and again beside each name: an act of remembrance, holding the dead, signalling visitation. 

 

We are the children of refugees who fled Europe, and the spectres who came with them. The ghosts of murdered family have haunted our whole lives. We confront that past to name each one who died, to acknowledge that they lived, loved, mattered. At last, we said Kaddish for them. Naming these members of our family brings comfort and closure for us. As the second generation of survivors, we carry our parents’ trauma and grief. May their memories, too, be a blessing.

 

Anne Zahalka

Acknowledgements

This artwork was originally conceived with my cousin Dorit Braun who researched our family who perished in the Holocaust. It builds on extensive research by Alisa Sharon and the memoir our aunt, Lore Lisbeth Waller (née Back) wrote.

As the project evolved, friends with shared histories contributed family names to this artwork. They are Vivien and Dennis Altman; Jane Becker; Ella Dreyfus; Juno Gemes; Su Goldfish; Jeanie Kable (née Zahalka); Julie Robb; Monica Robinson; Alisa and Tommy and Guy Sharon; Sue and Sandy Saxon; Leslie Solar; Naomi and Anita Ullmann.

 

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