Believe – The Lonka Project [presented by Auckland Festival of Photography]

From Ilan Wittenberg…

When Holocaust survivor Dr Eleonora ‘Lonka’ Nass died, her daughter Rina realised she knew very little of her mother’s experience of the Nazi concentration camps.

In 2019, Rina and her husband, Jim Hollander, decided to launch this project to document Holocaust survivors’ stories and asked fellow professional photographers worldwide to create portraits of survivors.

320 photographers in 35 countries each contributed portraits of a diverse group of Holocaust survivors, the last among us who will soon be unable to share their experiences in the first person.

The Lonka Project is an ongoing project consisting of a collection of 455 individual portraits of Holocaust survivors by over 320 professional photographers in some 35 countries, all contributing portraits of an equally diverse group of Holocaust survivors.

The Lonka Project co-curators: Rina Castelnuovo (Israel) is an Israeli photographer and filmmaker and one of Israel’s most awarded photojournalists. Rina began her career four decades ago with the Associated Press and, for the past 30 years, photographed for The New York Times in Israel and the Palestinian Authority, covering war and peace in the Middle East.

Jim Hollander (Israel) is an award-winning American photographer with a career spanning over four decades. Jim served as Chief Photographer and editor for Israel and the Palestinian Authority with UPI, Reuters, and EPA and has covered conflicts and other international news in the Middle East, Africa & Europe.

Opening Event: May 29th at 2pm – Save the Date!

Where: Gantry, Silo Park, 10 Jellicoe St, Auckland
When: 27 May – 14 June
Hours: 7am-7pm, daily
Website: https://www.thelonkaproject.com/