My wife Anna and I spent Christmas and New Year travelling around the Baltic states. Vilnius (Lithuania), Riga (Latvia), Tallinn (Estonia) and Helsinki (Finland) – you have to be a little crazy to travel there in winter. It was a journey that took us further and further north. It was dark and cold, but it was still one of the most beautiful trips we’ve taken in recent years and a good opportunity to take a look at the Jewish heritage there.
Since the start of Russia’s war of aggression, travelling in Ukraine has not become easier. Nevertheless, my wife Anna and I have been there once or twice a year, and I have continued to photograph the local Jewish heritage. A highlight of our trips was certainly the town of Iziaslav in early 2025. At the end of 2024, we also visited Kraków, and at the beginning of 2023, Budapest. All these trips together form the source material for this year’s Vanished World calendar. The print files in German and English are available for free download and can be used by anyone for non-commercial purposes.
Some people spend their honeymoon in Paris, others in Venice. Hawaii is also said to be very popular. Anna and I chose Iziaslav (Izyaslav), a small town in the Volyn region of Ukraine. What is there? Two monasteries, a palace, a fortress, the ruins of a Polish church, two Jewish cemeteries, two synagogues, two Jewish study houses. Fun fact: the ancestors of Leonard Nimoy, who played Mr Spock in Star Trek, came from Iziaslav.
Kraków is the city where my interest in Eastern Europe and its Jewish heritage began. I had travelled there more or less by chance. That was almost 30 years ago. Back then, the city was a shock to me – its beauty, its history and my own ignorance of it. Now I’ve been to Kraków again. The city has changed and yet remained the same.
For more than 1,000 days, Russia has been inflicting war and terror on the people of Ukraine. All my friends there have suffered from this war in one way or another. Travelling in the country has become more complicated and yet I have been there four times since the beginning of the aggression – another trip is already planned. I have done what I have always done: I photographed Ukraine’s Jewish heritage – albeit to a lesser extent than was possible in the past. The pictures for the new Vanished World calendar for 2025 were taken on these trips. For me, this calendar is also something like a personal war diary. The print files in German and English are available for free download and can be used by anyone for non-commercial purposes.
I was in Ukraine between 10 and 20 February. The Russian aggression has been going on for two years and it was my third trip in this period. Anna and I mainly wanted to meet friends, but we also used the time for a tour from Ternopil to Skala-Podilska – with stops in Skalat, Hrymailiv, Husiatyn, Probizhna and Chortkiv.
2024 is already the third year of the war against Ukraine. Russia’s barbaric aggression continues. With this calendar, I would like to remind you that people are still dying every day in Ukraine, cities are being destroyed and the country’s cultural heritage is being devastated – even if the war has disappeared from the headlines or is overshadowed in the public consciousness by other wars and conflicts.
The calendar can be downloaded free of charge and contains the main Christian and Jewish holidays in a German and English edition. Most of the pictures were taken while travelling in Western Ukraine in December 2022 and July 2023.
It’s been more than five years since I was last in Budapest. A lot has changed since then and if you don’t think too much about politics during such a trip, Budapest continues to be a fascinating destination – also and especially because of its Jewish heritage.
Is it possible to travel to Ukraine under the conditions of the Russian war of aggression? Whatever, at some point in autumn I decided to go. From 20 to 30 December 2022 I was in Lviv, Ternopil and the surrounding area. I wanted to know how my friends were doing – my long-time travelling companions and the activists who care for the Jewish heritage in Galicia. And also Anna, who fled the war and has been living with me since March, wanted to see her boyfriend and her mother again. But beyond that, there was also a very simple reason for this trip: I was homesick for Lviv.
2021 had been a difficult year for me and I hoped for a better 2022. The hope was in vain. On 24 February, Russia invaded Ukraine, a country where I have many friends, where I have travelled a lot and which I love. I had also planned a trip to Ukraine for spring 2022. It was not possible. Instead, I went to Lithuania twice to take photos for my book “Grenzland | Borderlands”, which will be published in early 2023. However, the trips to Lithuania were more than a substitute for Ukraine. The country looks back on an incredibly rich Jewish history. A selection of the photos taken during these trips can be seen in the new Vanished World calendar. May 2023 be better than 2022!
Vanished World 