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Books and magazines are piling up everywhere, and two books soaked in rain are even stuck between the lowered blinds on the window to let a little light shine into the small apartment in the center of Tel Aviv.
Gabriel Moked, Israeli philosophy professor and one of the country's most respected book critics, lives here.
He is feared by writers and described as a "man with walls".
To meet him for an interview, it takes dozens of attempts - some end up at his locked front door.
After the 87-year-old opens, he looks grumpy.
Moked lives alone, has no contact with his children, which he does not want to comment on.
Only when it comes to books does his voice soften.
"Fear would be the wrong word"
Moked has been passionate about reading since he was a child, and when the Nazis invade Poland - he was six years old at the time - it is the only thing to think far away from everything that is going on around him.
He was particularly fond of Kafka.
From an attic he watched the shots and the flames in the Warsaw Ghetto.
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His father, a respected doctor, takes Gabriel and his mother out of the ghetto and places them with good friends with forged papers.
“My father stayed in the ghetto to help the people.
He was later killed in the riot, ”says Moked, with a little pride in his voice.
Until the end of the war he and his mother lived camouflaged as Christians in a Polish.
"Fear would be the wrong word, but we knew very well what would happen to us if our true identity had been found out."
He no longer resents the Germans today for the "worst regime in human history", although he does not understand how a people to which Bach and Schiller belong could follow a person like Hitler.
“There were people in Poland who helped us, we mustn't forget that.
And we Jews learned from the Holocaust that it is a mistake not to have weapons.
Today we have some and can defend ourselves with it, ”says the survivor, alluding to the Israeli army.
Rachel Greenfeld and Eliezer Greenfeld (born 1926 and 1925) are one of the first survivors to marry
Source: Moti Milrod
For this reason, in order to remember what must never happen again, he had himself photographed for "The Lonka Project".
From January 27, Holocaust Remembrance Day, the recordings will now be available to the public - also in Berlin.
More than 300 photographers in more than 25 countries took pictures of survivors.
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For example Joe Alexander from the USA, born in 1922 in Kowal, Poland.
He survived twelve concentration camps, a death march, hunger, forced labor and typhus.
Or Madeleine Kahn, born in Paris in 1933.
Nuns hid them;
She did not see her family again until she was 13.
Or Ryszard Horowitz, now a photographer, born in Kraków in 1939.
He is considered the youngest survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
His family was deported when he was just four months old.
Or the author Moshe Haelyon from Greece, 94 years old today, the only survivor from his family.
His mother and sister were gassed.
He wrote books about Auschwitz and the death marches.
Moshe Haelyon, 94, born in Thessaloniki, survived Auschwitz.
The number 114923 tattooed by the Nazis is emblazoned on his left arm to this day
Source: Avigail Uzi
"The 'Lonka Project' shows a unique and unforgettable statement about the lives of Holocaust survivors," says Gisela Kayser, Artistic Director of the Willy Brandt House Friends Group.
“The pictures celebrate the courage, resilience and vitality of those portrayed and contribute to enlightenment in a world that is not free from ethnic hatred.
A global message for tolerance, humanity and compassion, ”continues Kayser.
Due to the pandemic, the exhibition will initially be on view in virtual form, but it will also be set up on site in the event that visitors are still allowed in the next three months.
Sir Ben Helfgott came to a glass factory from Poland as a Jewish slave laborer at the age of twelve.
The owner treated him brutally, but saved him from the SS
Source: Greg Williams
The initiators of the “Lonka Project” are the photographer couple Rina Castelnuovo, 67, and Jim Hollander, 71, who met during the Lebanon War.
Rina is the daughter of Holocaust survivors.
But what the mother experienced was not talked about in the family: “The Shoah was not an issue at home, what my parents experienced, about it was kept silent.
You know it is going to hurt, so you try to avoid it, but it will catch up with you, ”says Castelnuovo.
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When her mother died in 2018, her lack of knowledge caught up with Rina: "I realized that we now have a responsibility to remember all of this." The Israeli photographer, who received the World Press Photo Award, among other things and works for the "New York Times", regretted the silence and that she never asked.
“I knew it would hurt to talk about it, so I kept silent.
Who would want to hurt their parents? "
Together with her husband, whose Jewish father smuggled himself into the American army as a minor to fight the Nazis, she reads her mother's letters and documents.
At the same time, the couple observed the steadily growing anti-Semitism and general hatred against minorities in the world.
“We knew that we had to contribute to remembering.
Too many people don't even know what the Holocaust is anymore and we want to bring it to the attention of the younger generations, ”explains Jim.
They bring the "The Lonka Project" into being, which bears the nickname of Rina's mother: "We are of course commemorating my mother, but we honor all Holocaust survivors."
"Get to know the survivor"
The two of them turn to their colleagues around the world with the request to take a portrait of a Holocaust survivor - one photographer each photographs a survivor.
“Get to know the survivor, then take the portrait.
However you want.
We only asked the photographers to take a picture that reflected their spirit in order to show more than just their face, ”says Hollander.
And his wife adds: “On the one hand, it can be implemented faster in terms of time, and time is of the essence in this case.
On the other hand, it is also more interesting to see how the same subject is implemented differently by each photographer. "
The geneticist Renata Polgar Laxova, born in Brno in the Czech Republic, survived thanks to a child transport to England.
She discovered Neu Laxova Syndrome (NLS)
Source: Michael Nelson
Just like most children and grandchildren of survivors, Rina also carries the trauma: “Yes, I feel that very clearly.
I have a very strong protective instinct when it comes to my daughters, I am always afraid that everyone will eat enough, and I also believe that as a descendant of survivors you are often more sensitive towards people, animals and nature. ”She too herself never spoke to her two daughters about the Holocaust.
“I didn't want to burden her childhood with such a difficult past,” says the 67-year-old.
But then her daughters also started asking questions.
Rina's realization: There is no way around it for any generation.
On the website of the project, which the couple runs on a voluntary basis, it quickly becomes clear why it is so important: Many of those portrayed have died in the past few months.
With the help of the exhibition, which is of worldwide interest, their stories and courage to live are preserved.
Eva Schloss was a friend of Anne Frank.
As the stepdaughter of Otto Frank, Anne's father, she lived in Amsterdam in the same neighborhood as the family until she was deported
Source: Stuart Franklin
Like that of book critic Gabriel Moked.
He was captured by Eyal Warshavsky in the midst of his books in Tel Aviv: "It is an honor to meet a survivor and Gabriel is a very interesting and intelligent person," says Warshavsky.
“There is no difference in technology, but it is different to photograph a contemporary witness.
One day they won't be here to share their experiences, that's why it is so important that we hold onto them. ”It was particularly important for him to show Gabriel's past and present.
When asked which of all the countless books that Gabriel Moked has read is his favorite book, he waves it aside: "I can't answer that, but Kafka will always be one of my favorites."
You can find the virtual exhibition here: www.fkwbh.de