This mixed media photographic tintype series began as my response to the 2016 presidential election and all the talk about building a wall to keep “undesirables” out of our country. It made me think about my heritage and how my family came to the United States in the early 1940s as refugees from WWII, as “stateless former Germans.” My mother has told me stories about her Jewish family’s escape from Berlin when she was a young child. She and her four siblings were taken in by families in France and Holland, who hid them during the war until they were able to leave Europe. They travelled by boat, “The Winnipeg”, to St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, and from there to Puerto Rico and then to Ellis Island. I uncovered photographs of my family from before this period, which inspired this series. In the photographs I found, the children seem innocent and happy, living normal lives, not knowing what was to come. I am struck by how similar things seem today, and how vulnerable families must feel about the unknown future of our country.
