About the Book

In Search of Amnesia is a 5-year documentary project looking into the Jewish narrative in Poland and Ukraine. The project is concerned with memory, specifically how Jewish memory is held in places that suffered atrocity and immense loss. The title of this project refers to a state of trauma: amnesia refers to repressed memories, searching for amnesia is akin to the process of being inextricably drawn to this deep sense of loss whilst at the same time unable to fully revisit the site of original trauma. The images I present occupy this psychological space: the push pull between the horror and the wish to rectify history.

On 2nd January 2017, I flew to Krakow to begin my research project. This was the start of a long-term documentary project and begins, almost predictably, in Auschwitz, but then follows a route that shifts and changes, following leads and hunches, ideas and directions, rivers and transportation lines, dead ends and surprising synagogues. As I travelled through this memory-rich landscape, I tried to make sense of overt and buried memories, past atrocities and contextual history. I visited former atrocity sites but also places that had held vibrant Jewish life and culture. Today it is difficult to find traces of these once vibrant communities in the small towns and villages in Poland and Ukraine, therefore I sought this narrative through a variety of methods: by seeking remnants of these communities in the form of still extant synagogues, often derelict or repurposed; by looking for the physical objects, the relics, stored in museums or sold as tourist trinkets; and by meeting the various custodians of memory: the historians, conservationists, archivists, forensic archaeologists, tour guides, teachers, artists and local people.

About the Author