An orangery that has become a canvas of art and freedom for two rebellious girls, dotted with words that testify to memories.
This is the framework within which the 'After Images' exhibition unfolds inside the Shoah Memorial in Milan, signed by the photographer Eva Krampen Kosloski, which tells the story of his mother and aunt, who survived the Nazi massacre of Robert's family Einstein, cousin of the physicist Albert, murdered in 1944 in Rignano sull'Arno, just outside Florence.
The exhibition, a project in collaboration with the Primo Levi Center in New York (where it will then be exhibited), curated by Allessandro Cassin and set up by Andrè Benaim, opens its doors to the public until January 24th.
The works present tell the dramatic story of Paola and Lorenza Mazzetti, both missing today, motherless twins adopted at 6 years old by their paternal aunt, Einstein's wife, starting from their childhood, which for decades was left dormant by the two women in the drawer of memories .
The two elderly sisters are the protagonists of a series of shots among the fog of the Tuscan hills, their family villa burned down but then restored, the woods as a place of rediscovered peace and the lemon grove.
Precisely in that place, having escaped the fire of the residence after the massacre, the two twins took refuge, often after being scolded by their uncle, to paint free birds and trees on the walls.
On 3 August 1944, when they were 16 years old, they were spared because they were not Jewish from what was a real execution by Nazi soldiers, who killed before their eyes their aunt, Nina Mazzetti and her cousins, Cicci and Light.
Einstein also escaped the massacre, having taken refuge in the woods convinced that they would only be looking for him, who then took his own life the following year.
Darkness, light, darkness, pitch darkness, light and more light, are the moments chosen by the curator Alessandro Cassin, to retrace their history: "in the lemon house they painted many things, which remained intact and represents the thin thread of memory - he explained - which reconnects the serenity and wisdom of advanced age with that blocked childhood".
Among the shots, the ancient photos and the memories in the display cases, the images of their drawings parade on the columns of the Memorial, dotted with phrases by Lorenza, taken from her book 'Il cielo che cade'.
"The fog took us back in time, a path that heals us from the past - said Eva Krampen Kosloski - the warmth of the local people, of the homeowners, is as if it had reconnected two threads that had remained connected, filling a void".
"The union between photography that captures the elaboration of the Memory and documents that tell the story fits into the story of the Memorial - said Roberto Jarach, president of the Shoah Memorial Foundation in Milan - history and memory come together in a continuous dialogue , and at this moment it enriches us even more to know family stories."
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