Photographing the last survivors of the Holocaust

Rabbi Aliza Erber80, stood at the edge of a pier in Lower Manhattan and told those around her to come closer — and look at the Brooklyn Bridge.

A few seconds later, there it was: a portrait of her face projected onto the bridge, against the backdrop of the Brooklyn skyline, along with her own words. “It wasn't okay then, it's not okay now.”

She took in the moment, mesmerized. “That's me,” she said, her eyes shining. “That's me.”

Rabbi Erber is a Holocaust survivor who was hidden in a forest in the Netherlands as a baby during World War II.

Standing next to her Saturday night was Gillian Laub, a multimedia artist who had orchestrated a massive public art project that unfolded across Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Using projectors strategically placed, Ms. Laub, who is best known for her photography, arranged for her portraits of Holocaust survivors to be displayed on the facades of buildings and monumental structures.

Ms. Laub and her team hoped that New York City would wear these faces as an ephemeral veil for most of the night.

The project, called Live2Tell, focuses on Ms. Laub's new and growing photo archive of survivors. She has created over 200 portraits to date, with plans for more. She and her associates chose January 27, the designated destination of the United Nations International Holocaust Remembrance Dayto draw public attention to the project.

Next to the photos were quotes from the survivors: “Every person saved is a whole world,” for example, were the words accompanying the portrait of Faye Tzippy Rapaport-Holand. But there were no captions identifying the faces as those of Holocaust survivors.

“I want everyone who looks at these projected people to see just the person, the humanity,” said Ms. Laub, 48. She hoped that those curious to know more would Live2Tell Instagram page – especially young people, who Ms. Laub thinks know the least about the history of Jews before and during World War II.

Her project comes as the number of Holocaust survivors worldwide – now estimated at 245,000 – decreases. Since Ms. Laub began photographing these portraits last fall, at least one of her subjects has died, she said.

The project began in late October when Ms. Laub was asked by the Jewish Center Auschwitz Foundation to photograph a group of Holocaust survivors who were to gather at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Lower Manhattan.

She decided to photograph the survivors individually, against a free white background. Her creative inspiration was the portraits of Richard Avedon Allen Ginsberg's familywhich he photographed in 1970 and became part of him “Murals” series.

Ms. Laub's projects tend to start small and then grow in size. In 2002, she was sent by Spin magazine to photograph homecoming dance rituals in the South. In Montgomery County, Georgia, Mrs. Laub was shocked to hear that school dances there were racially segregated. She returned repeatedly to document the community and her work spawned a New York Times Magazine photo essay and an HBO documentarya book and a traveling one museum exhibition.

Beginning in 2002, she spent several months each year in Israel and the West Bank for four years, resulting in the 2007 book: “Testimony,” with portraits of Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs and Palestinians.

Her one-day photo shoot of survivors last fall would also grow in breadth. She decided to continue photographing survivors and add video interviews. She envisioned turning the images into a mural—perhaps as “an outdoor art installation around an old synagogue on the Lower East Side”—but was warned by a friend that she risked having her project vandalized .

“You can't do that,” Ms. Laub said the friend told her. “The mural will be defaced. You have to honor these people. You can't have them defaced.”

Given the public tension over the posters of people kidnapped from Israel seen on the city streets at the time, she agreed and realized she had to make a pivot. Her friend suggested projecting images of the portraits onto buildings. “No one will be able to take them down.”

Many of Ms. Laub's employees donated their time to the project, but there were still significant costs. A Jewish nonprofit called Reboot became a fiscal sponsor, allowing people to make tax-deductible donations. The project received $125,000 to cover the cost of the projections from a donor who, Ms. Laub said, wishes to remain anonymous. Friends, family and collectors of Ms. Laub's work have also donated.

To choose locations in New York for projecting the portraits and to handle the associated technical and logistical aspects, Ms. Laub enlisted the help of Seth Kirby and Jason Batcheller, who run the company. Production triangle. They have worked on projections for Metallica and the Met Gala.

“Wizards,” Mrs. Laub calls them.

Mr. Kirby and Mr. Batcheller mapped out places in the city where they could project onto highly visible, flat and windowless surfaces.

Mr Batcheller said they had consulted with the city and state government, but no one was sure if there were any legal issues because they were not posting physical signs or advertising a commercial product.

“This is a very gray area,” Mr Kirby said.

“In the past we have just done it and asked for forgiveness later,” Mr Batcheller added.

Meanwhile, Ms. Laub continued taking portraits. In mid-November, she photographed more than a hundred survivors in a studio in Brooklyn. Two Russian translators volunteered. A friend of Ms. Laub's who speaks Yiddish also came to help.

Earlier this month she photographed another eleven.

Prof. Asher Matathias80, brought with him a large poster showing his family history – from hiding from the Nazis in a cave in Greece to emigrating to the United States in 1956.

Esther Berger, 81, and Dr. Joseph Berger, 86, were also photographed that day. They were both imprisoned as children in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and then met as young adults in Israel and married in 1966.

For the shoot, Ms. Berger wore a bright pink sweater, but she also brought a second outfit option in a bag. “What you're wearing is absolutely perfect,” Mrs. Laub assured her.

Anna Malkinawho was born in Russia in 1937 and survived after being hidden in a bomb shelter first by her father and then by a non-Jewish family, stood in front of a camera and shouted “God Bless America,” her high-pitched tone at the end drowned out by the applause of Ms. Laub and her team.

“This is my favorite,” Ms. Malkina said of the song.

In early January, Ms. Laub, Mr. Kirby and Mr. Batcheller went for a test run. As they projected images onto the entrance to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel in Manhattan, nearby police officers noticed and asked them to leave, which they did.

The project is “a bit of a hassle,” Mr Kirby said.

But on Saturday, the night's first projections — not just on the Brooklyn Bridge, but at nearly two dozen locations — seemed to go smoothly. Several survivors and their relatives joined Ms. Laub on a pier in lower Manhattan, where they had a good view of the projections of the Brooklyn Bridge.

“I wish my mother was here,” Rabbi Erber said.

Rabbi Erber was born in the Netherlands after the German invasion and was separated from her mother when, she said, a doctor agreed to keep her and nine other babies underground. They lived in what she described as a makeshift bunker without windows or doors, beneath woods where Nazi soldiers patrolled. She and her mother were eventually reunited and emigrated to Israel before moving to the United States.

Today, she said, she felt compelled to tell her story. “We are the last link in this terrible chain,” she said. “It's the reason I speak as much as I do.”

Ms. Laub, buzzing with nervous anticipation, finally breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing the first projections. Rabbi Erber, still tearful, hugged the artist, who felt momentarily grateful.

“Thank you for your trust,” Ms. Laub said, clasping Rabbi Erber's hand.