The Lonka Project: A Global Documentation and Commemoration Project
The Lonka Project, a global educational and artistic photography project, was named after Dr. Elionora Nass (“Lonka”) from Tel Aviv. Lonka was born in 1926, survived five concentration and death camps, immigrated to Palestine after the war, and started a family. Lonka passed away in the summer of 2018.
The project was initiated by photographers Rina Castelnuovo-Hollander, Lonka’s daughter, and Jim Hollander, the son of Gino Hollander, an American soldier who fought the Nazis in Europe during World War II. Another partner in the project, Dr. Hagai Rot, is a researcher at the Weizmann Institute and a major promoter and producer in Israel. The project is a photographed tribute to the Holocaust survivors living among us today.
Hundreds of professional photographers around the world, including photographers of all religions and some of the world’s leading photographers, volunteered to photograph portraits of Holocaust survivors living in more than 24 different countries. Many of the survivors lived to an old age, and their accomplishments provide inspiration and a model for future generations. Their photographs reflect their choice to live full lives, alongside the pain and the memories that are always with them. Every photographer made personal contact with the photographed survivor. With sensitivity and empathy, the photographers managed to produce hundreds of emotionally moving photographs documenting the meeting with the last remaining Holocaust survivors living among us.
With regard to the project, its initiator Rina Castelnuovo says:
We all understand that it is important to not only remember but also to remind, and today’s connection with the generations of tomorrow is a visual connection. Photography – our language – is a universal language that can bridge intergenerational gaps, contribute to education, and help in the war against the ignorance that exists in the world on the subject of the Holocaust. It can also convey the messages of many survivors calling for humanity and compassion, in a world that still contains the danger of hatred on ethnic grounds.
The youngest survivor photographed for the project is an 80-year-old man, and the oldest survivor is a 105-year-old woman.
The photos were added to a photo exhibit that was first displayed at the From Holocaust to Revival Museum at Kibbutz Yad Mordechai on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day in January 2020. The following day, the exhibit was also displayed at the United Nations building.
Also part of the exhibit’s display at the museum is a moving video art display. It begins with the video display “Siren”, by the artist Alon Bernstein, and is followed by the display of the photos of the survivors, one after another, accompanied by original music written especially for the project.
