Landscapes such as Galicia, Bessarabia, Podolia or Bukovina are no longer found on any map. There, in Eastern Europe, in a belt between the Baltic and Black Seas, lived the majority of European Jews. During the Second World War, almost all of them were murdered by the German occupiers and their collaborators. What remains are traces of Jewish life: destroyed or misappropriated synagogues, overgrown cemeteries, tombstones in the street paving, and traces of home blessings on door jambs.

The Cologne-based photographer and blogger Christian Herrmann has travelled Eastern Europe for years to document such traces. As a photographer, he is above all interested in the places that have not yet been transformed by a “culture of remembrance” and which immediately reveal the devastating power of the dictatorships of the 20th century.

On 180 pages, the book presents 110 photos of Jewish heritage sites in 57 cities, towns and villages in Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, Poland, Hungary and Romania:

Bălţi, Berdychiv, Berehove, Berezhany, Bibrka, Boryslav, Botoșani, Bratslav, Budapest, Busk, Câmpulung Moldovenesc, Chabarivka, Chernivtsi, Chișinău, Chortkiv, Dorohoi, Făleşti, Gura Humorului, Horodenka, Kalush, Karczew, Khyriv, Klevan, Kolomyia, Komarno, Kopychyntsi, Kraków, Lutsk, Lviv, Mizoch, Mykolaiv, Novoselytsia, Orhei, Pidhaitsi, Probizhna, Radekhiv, Ralivka, Raşcov, Rezina, Rohatyn, Rozdil, Sambir, Siret, Slavuta, Soroca, Staryi Sambir, Stryi, Suceava, Tirgul Vertiujeni, Trochenbrod, Turka, Vadul-Raşcov, Volochysk, Warsaw, Zbarazh, Zgurița, Zhovkva.

Christian Herrmann
In schwindendem Licht | In Fading Light
Jüdische Spuren im Osten Europas | Jewish Traces in the East of Europe
Lukas Verlag
180 pages, 110 full colour photos
Text in German and English
230 x 220 mm
Hardcover
Foreword by Adam Kerpel-Fronius
To be published in September 2018
ISBN 978-3-86732-301-7
30,– €

By ISBN 978-3-86732-301-7 you can order via any bookstore world wide. You may also order via the website of the publisher and Amazon Germany, Book Depository or other online services. Alternatively you may order via e-mail from the publisher (lukas.verlag@t-online.de).

This book was made possible by a generous contribution to the printing costs from Klaus-Dieter L. Ehmke on the occasion of his 60th birthday.