Erft Book
Ludomir Franczak

This is an identity project. I want to reveal the family secret, according to which, my real grandfather was a Hungarian doctor named Erft. It is a complicated story from the II World War, which my grandmother- Wanda told her son (my father)- Antoni in a secret. This is a story which little pieces pass by my ears from the beginning of my childhood. My grandmother died in 1996, but she left some documents. My aunt- Bozena who was with her in Budapest in 1944 is still alive…
I want to reveal the real story- by searching Wanda’s papers, looking for some historical documents, talking to Bozena, and looking for the doctor’s family. In the same time I’m interested in the process of remembrance. I want to investigate how the historical facts are being remembered, and modified in a climat of family secret- something whispered behind the closed door.
The story of my grandmother’s escape from Poland in an ambulance- smuggled through the Polish- Hungarian border by her beloved, then living in a camp for Poles in Budapest, finally giving birth to my father in a work camp in Dessau in march 1945 is a great movie story- yet it is just one of many war stories. In the same time it is the story of my family, of my identity.
The purpose of my residence in Budapest is obvious- I want to find my grandfather, my “lost” family. In the same time I’m interested in revealing of the whole process of searching and creating a legend from real story. I’ll collect the documents, record all my conversations with family members in Poland, and people that I’ll find on my way. I also want to create a hypothetical bedroom of my grandmother Wanda, and the Erft grandfather. What if they lived together after the war (Wanda was learning Hungarian in Budapest)? How would it be? How would they home look like? Would I be brought to the world if my father was born in Hungary?

D 12€
Buy: orders@mottodistribution.com

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 4th, 2011 at 7:31 pm and is filed under photography, writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the
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