War Story Video

Synopsis

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 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.

About the Director

Mikael Levin (b. 1954, New York) is of American and French nationality and lives on Long Island, NY. He has been exhibited widely in the US and abroad, including solo exhibitions at the Jewish Museum, Paris, 2010, the Berardo Museum, Lisbon, 2009, the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, 2003, the International Center of Photography, New York, 1997, and Fundacion Mendoza, Caracas, 1980. His work is found in major collections such as those of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Jüdisches Museum, Berlin, the Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Paris, and Moderna Museet, Stockholm, and was presented at the Venice Biennale in 2003.

Artistic Statement

The War Story video was produced in 1998 as a supplement to my 1996 photographic project, War Story.

In 1944-45 my father, Meyer Levin, an American war correspondent, 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, my father 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 I retraced my father’s journey. I photographed the concentration camps and the Europe of today, contrasting his journey to my father’s experiences of fifty years ago.

In War Story I 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. In this video I am interviewed about the project in conjunction with the opening of one this work at Kunsthalle II, in Innsbruck.

This 20 minute film was directed by Susanna Partoll and produced by MEDIA Film (Austria) for the Fritz Bauer Institute, Frankfurt, with funding from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims, New York.

Exhibitions

Jewish Museum, Paris (2011)

Archives Nationales, Paris (2003)

Haus am Kleistpark, Berlin (1998)

International Center of Photography, New York

Jewish Museum, Berlin