Grunwald Gallery to exhibit "The Last Folio"

Starting Sept. 2, the Grunwald Gallery of Art will feature a historical photo gallery of lost photos from the World War II era.

“Last Folio: A Photographic Journey with Yuri Dojc” will showcase photographs taken during a journey through communities destroyed by the Holocaust.

“The Last Folio” is a poignant exhibition that retraces the history of Slovak Jews who lived during the Holocaust in Slovakia,” said Grunwald Director Betsy Stirratt. “Dojc and his partner, Katya Krausova, embarked on a journey to collect portraits and memories from more than 150 survivors.”

In 2006, Dojc found an abandoned school in Bardejov, Slovakia. Its doors had not been opened since 1942.

Dojc captured his findings in photographs which include schoolbooks, school reports and a book once owned by his grandfather.

Katya Krausova’s “The Last Folio: The Tales of Yuri’s Pictures,” a short documentary on Dojc’s findings, will be shown at 3 p.m. Sept. 1 at the IU Cinema. Afterward, a panel discussion with Krausova, Dojc and IU faculty will take place.

The documentary and discussion together form the event “War and Memory: A Symposium on the Last Folio.” A public reception will follow the event in the Grunwald Gallery.

Professor Jeffrey Veidlinger of the Department of History will join the discussion at the symposium.

“The symposium will show the dramatic effect art has on memory and trauma,” Veidlinger said. “I think it is haunting to see something as traumatic as the Holocaust displayed like this.”

The exhibit is sponsored by the Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program, according to IU Home Pages.

“Retracing the experiences of our families, and the worlds in which they lived and died, has been an enormously powerful journey that has been emotional and deeply spiritual,” Krausova said.