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The Absence of Religious Practice
What remains when a place of flourishing cultural life, devotional prayer, spiritual richness and human encounter is wantonly destroyed?
What remains after such a places is razed to the ground by force?
Approximately 1400 synagogues were destroyed in the Third Reich. Few were rebuilt, others became a memorial and some have been forgotten. Sometimes not even a small sign recalls today their former purpose. What is there perceptible for us today?
Is there a desolate nothing that no longer offers a foothold and ground for something new? Or a foundation, a space that needs to be occupied anew?
As a photographer, discovering the areas with my camera, I felt that more than 80 years later the space has still shape. The synagogues are gone, but they haven’t really vanished. For those who seek out religious practice, a place of longing remains, extinguished but not empty.
They left traces, the precise observer sees that they left a hint. None of these places are really empty, it’s noticable that something was there. Something is there, still.
