Introduction to Personal Pronoun
When you consider the past and immerse yourself in deep memories it is difficult to not experience the emotional attachment you have to those memories. Feelings are an intrinsic part of the fabric of memory, emotion is a consequence that comes unbidden and completes the picture.
Through the medium of photography we are able to capture moments which help us to visualise an historical event. The content of that moment is all contained in the image… people surrounded by familiar objects, landscapes, wild flowers, destinations we have traveled to and just about anything we see in any given moment. So when you think about it there is always a back story associated with that image. The photo by its nature and depending on your relationship to that photo, is either your memory or someone else’s. If it is yours, then it will inevitably result in an emotional response because you know the back story… a wedding, a birth, a death… all of the events and situations that span your life are potential material… subject matter so to speak to help you recount that moment. If it is someone else’s photograph then you are left with your imagination… you will never be indifferent because even if the image is not of interest to you, your decision not to engage is the result of responding in the first instance.
So with all of that said… this is the story of Itta and Isaac Wolf Milewsky. I did not know them. Itta and Isaac were my mother’s sister and brother, my uncle and aunt. This photograph was taken somewhere between 1935 and 1938. Itta and Isaac lived in a town called Lowicz which is in Poland. They were quite poor. Their father, Favel Milewski lost a hand during the first world war and did the best he could to provide for his family. His extended family had emigrated to the USA and Great Britain after the Great War but because of Favel’s disability he was ineligible to be accepted as a citizen in these countries… so, he remained with his wife Masha and his three daughters and son.
Some time in early 1940, the Milewski family including my mother, were transported to the Warsaw Ghetto along with four hundred and fifty thousand other Jewish families. The Warsaw Ghetto comprised an area of around three square kilometres. Sanitation was almost non-existent, families were crammed together in the limited accommodation… many perished through starvation and disease. Most of the other perished during and after transportation to extermination camps, Majdnek, Treblinka and Auschwitz.
My mother and Itta escaped from the Ghetto shortly after they were interned. My mother spent the remainder of world war two in a German slave camp which manufactured rubber. Itta spent some time as a governess until she was betrayed and shot. Isaac died in the Ghetto, he suffered form acute asthma.
This is a sad and distressing story…. these images were taken at a happier time in the lives of Itta and Isaac and remain a poignant reminder of their short lived lives. So, when you consider the past and immerse yourself in deep memories it is difficult to not experience the emotional attachment you have to those memories. Feelings are an intrinsic part of the fabric of memory, emotion is a consequence that comes unbidden and completes the picture.
Itta and Isaac Wof Milewski circa 1935-1938