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Taking pictures of the Boston Holocaust Memorial, by architect Stanley Saitowitz, for the BAC Lecture Series Committee turned out to be a much more moving experience that I ever could have imagined. On that particular day the sky was filled with a murky and thick atmospheric haze, where light from the sun struggled to break through the cloud layer above. It made for a moody, sorrowful and desperate presence. A spatial and physical lamentation. |
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The structure of the memorial itself is dark, and on that day the towers silhouetted against the grey haze of the sky like dead trees, burned of all life. Within the towers the view upward is phenomenal, resulting in a perfect square view of the sky, a telescoped vision of a loftier place far above us; to some this place is heaven; and in this case the square and its clarity recall the perfection of a promised afterlife. One of the aspects I tried to capture in the photographs was this power of ascension, a vertical thrust toward the sky. This perception is impossible to capture from without the memorial; one must pass through it to experience this vertical presence. Etched on the glass panels that veil each side of the structure are enumerated the serial numbers of each Holocaust victim, a reflection of the Nazi's systematic procedure of execution. These serial numbers ascend up in perspective like movie film credits do in some movies; the shear number of them is mind boggling as they blur in one's vision up the tower walls. |
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There have been many photographic essays taken on this subject before and since; yet for me, my photo's will always remain my favorites because they captured and represented the immediacy of a my emotions, my response, my sense of profound sadness...and even my sense of guilt and shame. For isn't true that in each of us lies dormant that madness...that human monster...that in every Age rears its ugly head and can never can be completely vanquished. ...that we long to express sympathy for, so that it remains dormant forever. Its by passing through these emotions and experiences, of which the Boston Holocaust Memorial provokes so well, that remind us of the importance of this dormancy. It's what we mean when we say, "let Evil rest in place." -Anthony |
Note: These images are Digimarc coded and registered.
Like all items on this web site, these images are copyright
protected and may not be copied and used
without the expressed written permission of BritasMedia / Anthony
Frausto-Robledo. |
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updated Nov 1, 1998 |
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