The 544

This ongoing project is a memorial to 544 psychiatric patients murdered by the Nazis in 1941 in Latvia. My grandmother was working at the hospital from where the patients were taken. I visited the hospital and found that no memorial exists. The only official record is a short paragraph in the Nuremberg report. Using a historic photographic process feels fitting for a project examining a historical event. An ancient Latvian pagan folk symbol, drawn on by hand in gold is added to each piece. It is impossible to forget how the lives of these people ended. However, the project is primarily intended as a memorial and I wanted the images to celebrate the lives lived before these people entered the hospital; before they died. Knowing nothing about the the identities of the 544, I have tried to imagine each one as a unique, precious being, and give each back a little of the character stripped from them when they were murdered and reduced by history to a number on a list of nameless victims.The project is the second in a trilogy looking at my family history, examining themes of cultural inheritance, identity and intergenerational trauma.