‘In the aftermath of the storm’
A small, one-eyed teddy bear sits in a glass case among other objects in the exhibit. On the wall is an image of the same stuffed animal, next to a passage of beautifully written cursive penmanship. Marianne Hess, the passage’s author, explains that the bear belonged to her aunt, Ursula Meyer, who buried the toy in her backyard before an impending torrential storm rolled through – before Ursula and her father were arrested and sent to Terezin concentration camp for the remainder of the war.
Hess writes, “In the aftermath of the storm, my aunt was reunited with her childhood teddy bear.”
Children everywhere have attachments to their stuffed animals, but few carry those attachments into adulthood, as Meyer did.
Past, Present, Pending
While the items and photographs present possessions from the past, Illinois Holocaust Museum CEO Susan Abrams believes the exhibit draws implicit connections in visitors’ minds to current and events.
“'Stories of Survival' allows us to not only explore the past, but to connect it to today and to the common experience of displacement, immigration, and starting over in a new land, while still holding on to memories, values and customs from a previous home,” Abrams said.
Lommasson added that the exhibit raised questions for him: if circumstance forced him into such conditions, he asked himself hypothetically, “What would I take with me? What would I be leaving behind?”
He summed up 'Stories of Survival' as the “culmination” of his storied career as a photographer and as the apex in his career evolution. He said he will inevitably work on other projects, but he added, “I’m not sure what can follow this.”