Yochai Avrahami and Karin Eliyahu
Israeli artists
participant in
SFC – Shoah Film Collection
.
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video title:
“From the Middle to the Start”2009, 5:00
The video piece (by Yochai Avrahami and Karin Eliyahu) was filmed at Zosha’s House who is a holocaust survivor from Poland. During the war she was adopted by a Polish family where she was disguised as a Polish orphan. Since her arrival to Israel, Zosha has been creating dalls/mannequins which relate to general Jewish motifs and the holocaust in particular.
During the film Karin is seen talking to Zosha about her relationship with her adopting mother,about confronting a German soldier and the return of her biological mother at the end of the war.
The conversation takes place in Zosha’s lounge amongst the presence of the life size mannequins.
The film has a grotesque feel: agitated shots of the camera, Karin chatting to Zosha while nursing her baby and Zosha’s dolls expressive and surrealistic, hovering around as scarecrows in a bourgeois lounge.
The work relates to the specific area of history passed on by witnesses and holocaust survivors, who were children during the war, a personal account which can be vivid and at times a distorted narrative.