In the early 1990s, Judy Glickman Lauder photographed the memorial sites of concentration camps to contend with and maintain the memory of the horrors experienced by her Jewish ancestors. 

In Bohušovice Train Station at Theresienstadt Concentration Camp, Czechoslovakia (1991, printed 2023), the train that brought Jews and other persecuted groups to the Theresienstadt concentration camp rests ominously at the platform. The hazy image, rendered in black and white, dislocates the train out of time – though the photograph was taken in 1991, the composition makes it seem as though the work could have been taken during World War II. Through this intentional chronological confusion, Lauder illustrates how the trauma of her ancestors exists in the present and how the violence of antisemitism is a contemporary issue with deadly consequences.

As the daughter of a photographer and a photographic activist and storyteller in her own right, Lauder’s photographs have been exhibited worldwide. Traveling extensively throughout her life, she spent decades visiting Holocaust memorial sites, acting as a witness to her ancestor’s trauma. ​“We live in a dangerous world,” says Lauder, ​“and our ability to destroy has only grown manyfold since World War II. We cannot allow hatred and injustice, power and greed to gain a foothold – anywhere or towards anyone.”