Photo collage: In the foreground is a human figure wrapped in a coast, face hidden. In the background, an image of Holocaust victims.

Where My Family Is From

By Howie Good

 

Photo collage: In the foreground is a human figure wrapped in a coast, face hidden. In the background, an image of Holocaust victims.

 

Artist’s statement: My family originated in Eastern Europe. Any member who did not emigrate prior to the rise of the Nazism—my maternal grandmother’s parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins—were exterminated in the death camps during World War II. No record of exactly what befell them or where was ever discovered, despite intensive efforts by my grandma.

The collage is composed of a historic photo of a barracks in a death camp in Poland. I superimposed and colored by hand the ghostly coat in the foreground.

Howie Good’s handmade collages have appeared or are forthcoming in Mayday, Sulphur Surrealist Jungle, Defunkt, Drunk Monkeys, Blue as Orange, decomp, The Offshoot, Mad Swirl, Mercurius Magazine, Scapegoat Review, Wrongdoing, Willows Wept Review, Writers Resist, Kitchen Table Quarterly, and Otoliths.

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