The magazine of the art-form of the photo-essay
June 2016 issue
by Johanna Diehl
“A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine. Fabulous!”
Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film & documentary maker
In 2013, German artist Johanna Diehl visited former synagogues in the
territory of what is now Ukraine. Partially destroyed during the German
occupation, the buildings were completely repurposed during the Soviet era:
as auto repair shops, vinegar factories, clinics, cinemas, sewing workshops,
gymnasiums, or KGB prisons. The structures plainly spell out the
inconsiderate demonstrations of power exercised by one ideology or
another over the synagogue as a religious, cultural space.
Sometimes, a bricked-up Torah niche, or a historical ceiling mural peeping
out from beneath a crumbling coat of paint hint at the richly religious life that
blossomed in these spaces for centuries.
