Milda He​ Photography

The Eyes Of The Ghetto Houses 

 

During my master’s year, I was concentrating on genocide in the world, which happened during the World War II and the genocide which has happened in Armenia, Guatemala, Rwanda not so long ago. Investigating why did it happened, what was the purpose of such mass killings and how did the world and human mind have changed after that, helped me to understand what I would like to photograph and what my work could explain.

Growing up in suburb of Kaunas where former ghetto and extermination camp was sited during the World War II helped me to appreciate the history which is now left behind and buried in the past.  Kaunas Ghetto was established in 1941 by the Germans in a small part of the city. At its peak, the Ghetto held 30,000 Jewish residents, later most of them was sent to concentration camps, extermination camps, or was shot at the 9th Fort. From 37,000 Jews in Kaunas, less than 3,000 had survived the war.

Barracks and wooden houses still stand there as they are mirrors of the past. People live in them and probably do not realize the history behind these walls. With this project I will try to reveal forgotten side of the ghetto, show others and get more familiar with the history which has been forgotten and faded from memories of people who witnessed it. However, I will not tell horror stories or moralize about what human kind did wrong in the past. 

My project is a collage made from different images of the houses in Kaunas Ghetto.  There is no same building, everything is different about them, they like individual people with they own personality formed by people who lived or still lives there. House was the place to live and to hide; it protects and gives a shelter. Proverb says: even walls have ears.  If these houses could talk, they could tell extraordinary stories, and if they could see- they could draw unforgettable portraits of the people who lived there.

I was thinking to make images black and white, so they would remind of the past more, but later on considering that images is taken now, and  that I want to show what is left from the past I took them in colour.  By cutting different parts from the individual houses and by placing images together I created an imaginary ghetto house, which is build from different shapes and textures. I choose to make four houses because number four has a deep meaning in all cultures including Judaism. In Asia people try to avoid this number because it symbolizes death, in other cultures this number can bring luck, and in Judaism it symbolizes God.

One imaginary ghetto house contains a lot of information. It is not only the images which are cut and combined together, but also  memories, emotions and the feelings, which has been left to the house while people where living there. Houses are like people, they have personalities formed by the people who lived there. Each different part of the house also shows how life can bring different people together, and build a relationship between them.