WAR STORY

Landscape and Memory; Retracing my father's W.W.II journey through Europe.
(1995-96)

   In 1944-45 an American war correspondent, Meyer Levin embarked on a journey through Europe. His assignment was to seek out the remnants of Jewish communities, to cover the "Jewish story". Sharing a Jeep with him was French photographer Eric Schwab. Schwab was photographing the war. He was also on a personal mission, searching for his mother who had been deported in 1943.
   In his autobiography, In Search, Meyer Levin describes that journey from Paris to Prague, through the Battle of the Bulge, the liberation of the concentration camps, and the first stirrings of the Cold War.
   In the fall of 1995 Mikael Levin retraced his father's journey. He photographed the concentration camps and the Europe of today, contrasting his journey to his father's experiences of fifty years ago.
   Mikael Levin has assembled those photographs together with his father's writings and with a selection of Eric Schwab's photographs from 1945, creating a narrative of images and text that span fifty years and two generations.

Project Resume

An installation of fifteen photographs from "War Story" is on display in the permanent collection of the Jewish Museum, Berlin.

Exhibitions:

Kunstfest Weimar, Weimar, Germany, 1996
International Center of Photography, New York, 1997
Deutsches Filmmuseum, Frankfurt-am-Main, 1997
Kunsthalle II, Innsbruck, 1997
Haus am Kliestpark, Berlin, 1998 (shown with "The Burden of Identity")
Rathaus, Düren, 1998
Lippisches Landesmuseum, Detmold, 1999
Handelshof, Leipzig, 1999
Centre Historique des Archives Nationales, Paris, 2003

Publications:

War Story. Monograph with texts by Meyer Levin. Introduction by Hanno Loewy, Afterword by Ellen Handy. Gina Kehayoff Verlag, Munich, 1997 (Also published in German as Suche.)

War Story. Exhibition catalog with texts by Meyer Levin and roundtable discussion with Jean-François Chevrier, Mikael Levin, and Annette Wieviorka . (In French) Centre historique des Archives nationales, Paris 2003.

Radio:

"Aucun d'entre nous n'avait vu" Surpris par la Nuit France Culture, March 18, 2003. 10:30 PM - Midnight. Produced by Sèverine Nikel, Directed by Anna Szmuc.

Video:

War Story Introduction to the project, interview with Mikael Levin. 22 minutes.
Directed by Sussane Partoll.

Collections:

Jewish Museum, Berlin
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
International Center of Photography, New York
Jewish Museum, New York

Funding:

Fritz Bauer Insitute, Frankfurt am Main
DG Bank, Frankfurt am Main
Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, New York

Reviews/Publications:

Books:

Image and Remembrance: Representation and the Holocaust, ed. Shelley Hornstein and Florence Jacobowitz. "War Stories: Witnessing in Retrospect" by Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer. (Indiana University Press, 2003)

Spectral Evidence: The Photography of Trauma by Ulrich Baer. (MIT Press, 2002.)
Chapter Two: "To Give Memory a Place: Holocaust Photography and the Landscape Tradition."
Chapter Three: "Meyer Levin's In Search, Mikael Levin's War Story."

La Mémoire Saturé by Régine Robin." Les photos dans les pas du père: le voyage de Mikael Levin. " Stock, Paris, 2003

Memory Effects: The Holocaust and the Art of Secondary Witnessing by Dora Apel.
" Mikael Levin: War Story" p. 144 - 149 (Rutgers University Press, 2002)

Documenta X - the book "War Story / Suche". pp.45-46. Cantz Verlag, l997

Journals:

Kunstforum International "Jüdische Spurensuche" Issue 137 pp. 196- 201, June-August l997
Fotogeschichte "Mikael Levin / Suche" by Detlef Hoffmann. 1998
History of Photography "War Story: Retracing My Father's Steps" Mikael Levin interviewed by Susanne Partoll. Photography and the Holocaust Vol. 23, no. 4 (Winter 1999)
Representations "To Give Memory a Place: Holocaust Photography and the Landscape Tradition."
By Ulrich Baer. University of California Press, #69, Winter, 2000

Newspapers:

Franfurter Rundschau "Im Wüsten Land" by Peter Körte. 06/19/96
Manhattan Spirit "The Killing Fields", by Michael Rothfeld. 02/21/97
Frankfurter Allgemeine "Die Zweite Vergangenheit" by Michael Jeismann. 02/27/97
Frankfurter Rundschau "Dei Reisen nach Theresienstadt" by Peter Körte. 02/26/97
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung "Spuren der Geschichte" by Juuml;rgen Richter. 02/27/97
Dreieich-Spiegel "Eine Melange der Zeit" by Thomas Schultz. 03/1/97
The New York Times "Into the 'Black Heart' of Evil: The Bodies, the Overgrowth, the Lies"
by Sarah Boxer. 03/7/97
The Jewish Week "Double Exposure to Memory" by John Mendelsohn. 03/14/97
Tiroler Tageszeitung "Eine Spurensuche in Europa" by Gretl Köfler. 04/17/97
Der Standard "Paris - Theresienstadt: Unterwegs im Jeep" by Ursula Philadelphy
Kurier "Lebendige Geschichte(n)" by Alexandra Keller. 06/1/97
Berliner Morgenpost "Dreidimensionales Road Movie" by Hauke Schrieber 16/6/98
TAZ "Schmetterlinge auf Kimonos" by Brigitte Werneburg 20-21/6/98
Dürener Nachrichter "Erinnerung an 1945" 18/11/98
Lippische Landdes-Zeitung "...von bösem Zauber durchdrungen" Nr. 37 13/2/99
Lippe aktuell "Mikael Levin- Spuren der Zeit" 17/2/99

Magazines:

Journal Frankfurt "Kunst der Erinnerung" by Sabine Horst. #5/97, 02/ 21 - 03/6/97
Review "Picturing the Pictures of the Holocaust" by Ezra Shales. 03/15/97
Art in America "Mikael Levin at the International Center of Photography" by Christopher Phillips.
Blind Spot "Mikael Levin". Issue Nine, May 1997
Art News "Mikael Levin" by Margarett Loke. September l997
Die Zeit Magazin "Grausame Zeiten" by David Bowie. Nr. 8, 02/12/98
Camerawork "Sunset at a Lake; Looking for Landscape photography in a New Millennium"
by Ellen Handy, Vol. 28, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2001)

Television:

Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (Germany) Aktuell: "Austellung" 06/16/96
Hessischer Rundfunk (Germany) Hauptsache Kultur: "Auf den spuren des Vaters" 02/28/97
Österreichweit (Austria) "Zeit im Bild" 04/17/97
Tirol (Austria) "Tirol heute" 04/23/97

Radio:

WBAI (New York) Beyond The Pale 04/13/9
Morgenjournal (Innsbruck) 04/18/97 7h
"Tirol aktuell" (Innsbruck) 04/18/97 12:30h