Allegory of the Silberstein family

In 1996, at the age of 65, I decided to renew my old family album. In the chaos of World War II, I had lost most of my family photographs, and so I came upon the idea of reconstructing the album with the help of my friends and relatives, who became my models. Thus the publication 'Rekonstrukce rodinneho alba' [The Reconstruction of a Family Album] came about. Most of my relatives died in concentration camps during the war, not leaving behind even one photograph or memento; they were perpetuated only in my memories, and so it occurred to me to bring them to life through photography. Thanks to the art of photography, to which I've devoted myself my whole life, one can stop time for a while and conjure up something that has faded over time. In this photograph, my son Matej personified my father, Dezider Silberstein. Matej's wife Karin represented my mother, Pavlina Silberstein, and I'm represented by the little girl holding a doll. The entire composition is an allegory, representing the war years when I was separated from my parents.