Tehom (Abyss)

Photographs frame the narrative of a painful journey from Thessaloniki to Auschwitz: the loss of Renée Revah’s family in the concentration camp. She promises her grandfather, the sole family member to avoid this fate, that ‘Tehom’ (biblical Hebrew for ‘abyss’) will bring him to the scene of the crime, which he had not found the strength to visit. Photographs and texts frame the narrative of the painful journey of discovery, from Thessaloniki to Auschwitz, of the deaths of Renée Revah’s family members in the concentration camp. Revah promises her grandfather, the sole member of her family to avoid this fate, that her work “Tehom” (a biblical Hebrew word, meaning primordial depth) will eventually ‘bring’ him to the scene of the crime, which he himself had not found the courage to visit in person. Two consecutive trips to the Birkenau and Auschwitz concentration camps will follow. At every step of her journey, she mentally addresses her grandfather, sends him photographs, and shares her thoughts and feelings with him. As a ‘post-witness’ herself, Renée Revah processes the past and transforms the inherited trauma into a purifying path that leads to forgiveness; the abyss of the lake that was the cenotaph of people murdered in concentration camps. FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO A 2019 EXHIBITION: ‘TEHOM—ABYSS’ by RENEE REVAH “On the 15th of March 1943, 75 years ago, at the old Thessaloníki Railway Station, the first death train bound for the concentration camps of Birkenau and Auschwitz in Poland could be heard blowing its whistle. 2,800 Greek Jews were cramped in locked animal transport wagons. By August 2nd that year, 19 shipments, arriving at night and under fog (“Nacht und Nebel”), carried 46,061 Greek Jews to these camps, where most were killed. Amongst them, my great…