Various sets, often very personal, exploring the history of one's own family, come to our box marked "Youth Portfolio." One such story was sent by Kamil Sleszynski.
The story and accompanying photographs - archival and contemporary, by the author - are moving. It turns out that the horrors of the communist period suffered by Sleszynski's ancestors can still have an impact today. The author wonders if the traumas of the past can "account" for the kind of man he is today, even though he never met either his grandmother or grandfather, because they died before he was born. Or maybe he "met" them, but in a different sense? Let's add that all archival photographs are authentic, coming from the author's family archives.
Let's give the floor to Kamil Sleszynski:
First the mother died. But for some time she still came to her daughter when she woke up crying. The household members said they heard footsteps and the steady creaking of the cradle after night. Then the crying would stop. However, the household members wanted the mother to stop coming. Therefore, on the advice of a neighbor, they scattered peas in the room. It helped. Then the Soviets came for the father and took him away. They also looked for his little daughter, but he lied to them that she had died of tuberculosis. In fact, the good people hid her in the grain. She sat there for a few days, long after the NKVD left. Even then, neighbors were already chattering that there might be something wrong with this family, that someone must have cast a bad spell on her. My father never returned from exile. Only a few photos were left of him. The daughter believed that he was still alive. One day, after many years of searching, she received a death certificate with pulmonary tuberculosis listed as the cause of death. She wanted to find his grave, but travel in the Soviet Union was difficult. She did not live to see better times. She died young after a long illness. Just like her mother.
The transmission of intergenerational trauma had a major impact on my life. Unconfronted grief impacted successive generations of our family. Over time, this grief blurred until it finally took the form of an indefinable emptiness that has accompanied me since I can remember. I think it was a kind of unconscious solidarity with the person who originally experienced terrible things. My mother received this "gift" from her mother, and then passed it on to me. Or maybe this trauma is not really there? Maybe I made it up, imagined it. Maybe I needed it to explain my life somehow. All that is incomplete in it, incompatible with my vision. Or maybe that's just how I am. Marked by a trauma that is not there. And which would explain everything that gives a picture of the future. Being rooted in the past.
Kamil Sleszynski (1982) - documentary photographer, self-taught. He is originally from Bialystok. His work focuses on complex themes of social isolation and identity. He lives and works in Podlasie.
