Persona Project: Tracing and Reconnecting With the Past

Persona Project: Tracing and Reconnecting With the Past

I used this persona project to explore the dynamic between my family history and my identity. These photographs serve to pay tribute to my paternal grandparents who were forced to flee Nazi Germany during the 1930s for being Jewish. The purpose of this homage is also to explore my identity and how the white privilege I enjoy in the United States is contingent upon the history of oppression of my grandparents. Although I have grown up hearing stories about my grandparents escaping and resettling in the United States, I often feel that I have become too removed from this history, in that I do not think enough about what my grandparents endured, and that my own white privilege is at the root of this problem. Thus, this project provides me with a vehicle to reconnect to my past.

The ideas for the images are based upon oral history that has been related through my father and grandmother. They are stories about escape and containment, as these interplaying concepts were the focus for these photographs. My father has told me stories about his father who was chased down alleyways in Germany, and forced to flee his home in Frankfurt in 1933. He fled to other European cities, before deciding to live in Milan, Italy for six years. However, as Nazism spread throughout Europe and into Italy, my grandfather saw escaping to the United States as his best and only option. While I intend to represent the literal sense of containment through these photographs, I also attempt to illustrate its figurative significance. Although my grandparents eventually found refuge in New York City, this does not mean they entirely removed themselves from their past, as they continued to experience psychological turmoil.

Lastly, to realize this project, I chose to wear my normal clothing, representing my present self and the privilege I enjoy, while wearing symbols or traces of the past to illustrate the history of my grandparents’ oppression. This project was also about the entire process—making the “jude” star, writing a concentration camp tattoo on my arm, and shooting these emotionally charged and tense shots in public spaces. The process was uncomfortable and all around unsettling. It enabled me to experience a glimpse of the hardships Frederick Beeler and Hilda Pels endured.