Promenade in Meran, tijdens een vakantie van de familie Wachenheimer, april 1936, Merano (Italië) 1936

Editor: This charming collection of gelatin-silver prints is titled "Promenade in Meran, during a holiday of the Wachenheimer family, April 1936, Merano (Italy)." It’s hard not to feel a sense of quaint serenity viewing these images. As an art historian, what strikes you about them? Curator: I see more than just "quaint serenity". Look at the date, 1936. The Wachenheimer family, documented here enjoying their Italian holiday, were Jewish. Considering the rise of fascism in Europe at that time, these photos become imbued with a poignant, almost tragic irony. Editor: Tragic? How so? Curator: These seemingly innocent holiday snapshots become evidence of a family experiencing normalcy just before the impending storm. Their leisure, the promenade, becomes a symbol of what they were about to lose – their freedom, their home, and potentially their lives. Editor: That is… chilling. So, you are saying the photographs operate as more than mementos; they tell a political story. Curator: Precisely! And the act of meticulously preserving these images in an album transforms the family’s personal history into a quiet act of resistance against erasure. Editor: That perspective casts such a different light on what appears at first glance to be a typical travel album. I now wonder who preserved the prints and whether it was an act of remembrance. Thank you; that offers so much to consider. Curator: The politics of imagery, as I said, extend beyond the surface. I have a feeling we've only begun to scratch the surface of this photographic series and the history to which it connects us.