“If previous experience is any indication, as time goes on these Jewish historical sites will change; many will deteriorate and be lost, and decades hence, photographs will be all that remain to remind us of many of these places and the people who lived there.”
—David Kaufman
Join the Montreal Holocaust Museum on November 9th at 4 pm to commemorate the legacy of Kristallnacht, the pogrom organized by the Nazis on November 9 and 10, 1938.
Kristallnacht was a turning point in the Nazi discrimination against Jews, moving from discriminatory policies to widespread violence and destruction that continued throughout the Holocaust. The vibrant Jewish life that existed in Europe was decimated, leaving only traces of it behind.
The Posthumous Landscape by David Kaufman is a tribute to Eastern European Jewry, its once-thriving sites, and a testament to how we are deeply connected to the places of our past. It is more than an act of preserving memory.
With Kaufman’s decades of documentary storytelling experience, he illuminates these places left behind. His photographs and accompanying texts describe a historic community that played a major role in the development of Eastern European society, and which left behind grand industrial complexes, urban neighbourhoods, architectural landmarks, beautiful synagogues, as well as vast cemeteries, and haunting memorials. The photographs also tell the stories of the afterlives of those places, many repurposed, some lovingly cared for by non-Jews who remember, and others slowly returning to the earth, but preserved in this book’s pages.
For its Montreal launch, David Kaufman will be in conversation with Norman Ravvin, professor in the Department of Religions and Cultures at Concordia University, to discuss his book at our Kristallnacht commemoration on November 9th.
This event is being run in partnership with the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.
Free reservations are required. Books will be available for purchase at the event.
November 9th at 4pm EST
In person at the Museum
Free reservations are required