{"id":1330,"date":"2021-06-21T08:02:41","date_gmt":"2021-06-21T13:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/?p=1330"},"modified":"2025-08-18T09:17:49","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T14:17:49","slug":"june-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/june-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"June 2021: Culmination of Chicago Scholor in Residence at BZ school &#8211; we created &#8220;Image Memory, Yesterday and Today&#8221; exhibit featuring photos, artistic representations and student interviews, accessed on QR codes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I just returned from Chicago and the culmination of our year-long project with 8th graders (yes, I really did say 8th graders) at the Bernard Zell Anshe Emet School. I will describe the project briefly below, share panels they created\u2014and thanks to the school, you can click on links to see (and hear) the kids\u2019 artist statements and excerpts of their Holocaust interviews. <\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1332\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1332\" src=\"http:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/june-2021-0-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" xheight=\"225\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1332\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/june-2021-0-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/june-2021-0.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1332\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The exhibition catalog<\/p><\/div>\n<p>This project, titled IMAGE AND MEMORY: YESTERDAY AND TODAY, was conceived by Dr. Jeff Ellison, History teacher, whom I met many years ago at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, where we were both presenting lectures. The art teacher, Gili Sherman, was also instrumental in this project, as was the technology teacher, Beth Sanzenbacher, together with the enormous support and encouragement of the school, especially the principal, Stephanie Bloom, and the generosity of the Lucas and Arkes families.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1334\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1334\" src=\"http:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/june-2021-1-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" xheight=\"225\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1334\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/june-2021-1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/june-2021-1.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1334\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Here is Jeff Ellison preparing the students for our guests<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The project in brief: Introducing students to photos, stories, and research in my book, THE LAST ALBUM: EYES FROM THE ASHES OF AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU; teaching them how to interview and photograph survivors (or their relatives, if the survivor was deceased), and creating their own exhibition.<\/p>\n<p>Students learned how to \u2018read photographs\u2019, that is, how to study photos very carefully for clues that can be gleaned from photos alone (This seems especially relevant now with Wendy Lower\u2019s new book, <em>The Ravine<\/em>, which is based on ONE tragic photograph. Unlike hers, the photos in my book depict moments of LIFE, not the moment of DEATH). In addition, students learned how to research the history of that specific survivor\u2019s story, and how to translate those personal narratives into one seminal exhibit photo. <\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1336\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1336\" src=\"http:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/june-2021-2-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" xheight=\"300\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1336\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/june-2021-2-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/june-2021-2.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1336\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Student team who studied Survivor Magda Brown z\u201dl, with the help of her daughter, Second Generation Rochelle Brown Rainey<\/p><\/div>\n<p>As if that wasn\u2019t enough, together with the photo of the survivor, these 8th-grade students also took very personal \u2018response photos\u2019 of their own individual reactions to the survivor\u2019s history\u2014and these too are a poignant part of the exhibit. Premiering on June 3rd (for special guests, including the survivors) and June 4th (for the 8th-grade parents), it will be on exhibit throughout the summer and into the start of school year September 2021.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1338\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1338\" src=\"http:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/june-2021-3-239x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" xheight=\"300\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1338\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/june-2021-3-239x300.jpg 239w, https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/june-2021-3.jpg 510w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 239px) 100vw, 239px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1338\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Noah and his grandfather, Michael Tennenbaum<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Here is Noah Tennenbaum with his grandfather (Saba, in Hebrew), Michael, whose essential message to the students is: \u201cTell your parents you love them.\u201d As an homage to Michael, seen laying t\u2019filin (putting on phylacteries), Noah chose to echo his grandfather\u2019s actions and pictures himself laying t\u2019filin as well. Mathew Azulay, another member of the team who interviewed Michael, chose to feature himself holding a photo of his family, taken at his recent Bar Mitzvah. As he explained, \u201cI am showing how I love my family and my pride in Judaism.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1340\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1340\" src=\"http:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/june-2021-4-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" xheight=\"300\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1340\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/june-2021-4-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/june-2021-4.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1340\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mathew Azulay, holding a photo of his family<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I invite you to hear the students\u2019 own artist statements (in their own voices) and their survivor summaries. If you were standing in front of the panels at the school, you would simply point your phone to the QR codes, located below each panel. Since you are in remote locations, Bernard Zell Anshe Emet School has arranged that you can <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCSmKK1XLO8MCCC4npGT9bhQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>CLICK HERE<\/strong><\/a> \u2014and you, too, can feel as if you are right here with us, and with these extraordinary students, teachers, and school!<\/p>\n<p>A sad note: Even in this brief time between the premiere of the student exhibition and this writing to you, one of our interviewed survivors has died (Leonie Bergman). Our 8th graders are the very last students she taught, and now, these students will become part of her legacy. May her memory be for a blessing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I just returned from Chicago and the culmination of our year-long project with 8th graders (yes, I really did say 8th graders) at the Bernard Zell Anshe Emet School. I will describe the project briefly below, share panels they created\u2014and thanks to the school, you can click on links to see (and hear) the kids\u2019 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7778,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fromann"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7778"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1330"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1710,"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1330\/revisions\/1710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelastalbum.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}