Last Folio
An abandoned Jewish school in eastern Slovakia is the starting point for this photo exhibition by Yuri Dojc.
The photo exhibition "Last Folio" by Yuri Dojc documents Jewish communities in Slovakia, where time has stood still since World War II. The starting point is the discovery of an abandoned school, which stood exactly as it did on the day the students were deported to concentration camps: with open notebooks, books and sugar in the cupboards. In 2006-2007, Dojc photographed the objects left behind and immortalised them with portraits as the only survivors of a bygone culture.
Empty buildings and abandoned books tell the story
In 1942, much of Slovakia's Jewish population was arrested and deported to Nazi extermination camps. All that remained were the empty buildings and the abandoned books, which Yuri Dojc captured with his camera in the period 2006 to 2008.
The images maintain and preserve the memory of the Holocaust, where 6 million Jewish people and more than 9 million others were systematically killed. The pictures show that time has not stood still. It is not just the room and the books that slowly disintegrate – so does the memory.
In recent years, "Last Folio" has travelled the world. Now it can be experienced at The Black Diamond, where Yuri Dojc's pictures tell the story of the destruction of a people and its culture during the Holocaust. It is also a story about the will to survive and the need for continued collective remembrance.
The exhibition is supported by:
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic
- Danish Jewish Museum
- The embassies of Slovakia, Israel, Germany and Canada
- Rothschild Foundation Europe
- Pentagram, Epson Canada