“These forged wartime identity papers show a passport sized photograph of my grandmother Kryszia with freshly dyed blond hair staring straight ahead. A new and necessary look to heighten her Aryan credentials, along with her acquired, nondescript Polish name and unlikely declared profession of ‘typist’. How to measure the fear and desperation in those eyes, hiding from a regime programmed to turn you, your family and your culture into ash.”
Extract from The Objects of Love, by Oliver Sears.
Awareness Ireland, a new organization which aims to connect the Holocaust to contemporary culture and the politics of our times. Lenny Abrahamson and Bergen-Belsen survivor Tomi Reichental are among the advisors. Daniel Mendelsohn, author of The Lost, The Search for 6 Million has appeared on their Talks and Events programme.
The Objects of Love exhibition is accompanied by an audio narration by Sears and an illustrated booklet. It is free and open daily until 13 February in Dublin Castle's Bedford Hall.