The unforgotten song by ella pellegrini

Public Story

The unforgotten song

Copyright ella pellegrini 2024

Updated Nov 2010

Topics Documentary

I left Australia two months ago to reach Italy to see my family. I took a long detour and one of the places I found myself was Latvia, in a small town of about 10,000 people close to the Russian border, in the Latgale district. It is called Ludza. When I began exploring I saw many churches and religious carvings - it was clear that at one time many different religions co-existed here. One day I chanced upon an abandoned brick building. I tried the door, it was open, so I went inside. There were benches and tables, covered in thick dust. Inside the table drawers were many books, all in Hebrew. This was an old synagogue. I hadn't seen any other Jewish buildings and this fired my curiosity. I started to research Ludza's past. I couldn't have predicted what I would discover. But Ludza's history is as fascinating as it is tragic. Before the Second World War Ludza had a thriving Jewish community of about 1,500 people, making up a large part of it's small population. The children studied in a well-respected Hebrew public school, and because of the high standard of Jewish learning the community was known as the "Jerusalem of Latvia." But in 1928, a great fire destroyed 95% of Jewish stores and houses "“ it's not known whether it was an accident or the fire was lit deliberately. Ludza was occupied by the Germans on July 3, 1941. They created a ghetto where murders, looting and rape took place on a regular basis, and the inhabitants became forced labour for the Nazis. On August 17, 1941, about 800 Jews were murdered at Lake Zorba outside of town. The few hundred that remained were killed in small groups, the last in May 1942. The rest fled. About 100 Jews returned after the war, but soon most of them left for Israel. I decided to see how many Jews were left in town and to find them. From the jews I found, I was told only 15 are left. The oldest lady is 83. The youngest girl is 15 and she, too, will soon leave for Israel. I met most of them, I went to their homes, they told me stories of their life, they sang songs from the past, so-called "forgotten songs", they took me for walks around Ludza showing me how the town would have looked before the war. We wandered in the cemetery, they completely opened up to me, and I took pictures. I wanted to portray this extraordinary story through their daily lives, their normal lives - people of all ages who move in their own warm space, and capture little details, expressions, movements, colours and sounds to evoke something of the past through their present. There atmosphere was heavy with sadness, with disturbing, unimaginable memories, yet there was so much tenderness. It was a close community that shared so much love for each other. I want to communicate this story as a journey, with each element joined by elegant movements. The spectator will then be able to feel the air, the sounds, the magic stillness that allows the characters to live in the present and the past at the same moment.

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