David Miller Studios - Holocaust Survivor Portraits

Our sensitivity must honor their past..... Starting in Late 2011, The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles began running a biweekly column profiling and photographing Holocaust survivors living in the Greater Los Angeles area. I was fortunate enough to become the Photographer responsible for capturing and submitting those photographs. My Holocaust Survivor Portraits aim to honor these survivors, recounting the often incomprehensible adversities they have suffered and paying visual tribute to the lives they have rebuilt. An additional goal is to remind the local Jewish community that many survivors – thousands, in fact -- are still alive, and many are struggling financially and/or emotionally. During this assignment work the majority of these survivors I met and photographed were interviewed and profiled by Jane Ulman a contributing editor of The Jewish Journal. On January 26th, 2014 the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust exhibited 29 of David Miller's visually riveting Portraits of Holocaust survivors along with accompanying profiles, previously appeared in the Jewish Journal, the largest Jewish weekly newspaper in the United States outside of New York City. These profiles were written by contributing Jewish Journal Writer Jane Ulman. The exhibit stood as a gallery of living history as each of these survivors personally witnessed one of the defining moments of the 20th century: Adolph Hitler’s genocidal campaign against the Jews of Europe. The exhibit included an accompanying catalog with the stories that appeared in the Jewish Journal. Most of the survivors who were profiled waited decades after World War II to tell their story. Some of them have never before told their story outside of their immediate families. But all of them tell important stories of devastating heartbreak, brutality, miracles and the arduous rebuilding of broken lives.

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Please Contact us using the CONTACT FORM BELOW.... If....YOU ARE....

• INTERESTED in learning more about this project.

• HAVE Media (photos and videos) you wish to share with us.

• You are a HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR or SOMEONE WHO MAY KNOW/MIGHT BE RELATED TO a Survivor who might be interested in having his or her portrait taken and may like to participate in this educational initiative.

Thank you!A Response will follow shortly

KNOW A HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR OR LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS PROJECT?

VIDEO FROM the 2014 exhibit at the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust featuring words by Rob Eshman Ex Editor In Chief at the Los Angeles Jewish Journal

Artist Statement (by David Miller):

The TRUE power of my Survivor Portraits as a body of work is drawn from the subject's individuality when being photographed and their willingness to share experiences so near and distant to their heart. The photographs you see are undoubtedly only minute representations of the individuals themselves and to their status as "Survivors," a term to which Holocaust memories rip apart lives and recall years of emotional pain and lost loved ones. It is my hope that this project grows with an evolving interest to teach what must never be forgotten.

I am now in the process of expanding this Project into Jewish communities around NY & NJ and EVEN BEYOND TO the entire regional United States and world. Hence it is the now time of "now or never" to photograph and visually archive the remaining Holocaust Survivors whose pictures and stories will be all we have when they pass away.

Holocaust Survivor Portraits

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