Project 28955; An Artistic Archive of Memory, Identity, and Inheritance

Project 28955

An Artistic Archive of Memory, Identity, and Inheritance

On January 15th, 1943, my great-grandmother, Józefa, was transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau—then under Nazi occupation in Poland. Stripped of her name, she was assigned a number: 28955. This project takes its title from that number, a symbol of dehumanization, but also a point of reconnection across generations.

Her journey began in the summer of 1942, under brutal circumstances. She was torn from her twelve children and her husband by the Gestapo. Soon after, her husband was also taken—imprisoned in Rawicz, where he died a year later, stabbed with a pair of scissors. Illness, exhaustion, and the impossibility of meeting forced labor quotas sealed his fate.

After nearly six months in the Fordon women's prison in Bydgoszcz, Józefa was packed into a cold, dark cattle wagon and transported nearly 500 kilometers to Auschwitz. One month after her arrival, she perished. She had become a number—28955—but remained a mother, a wife, a human being whose memory endures through the fragile thread of family legacy.

Twelve children were orphaned. What remained of their parents were two letters: one from their mother, one from their father. These letters became sacred relics of loss and love.

Years later, I returned to Poland to retrace this story—my story—and confront a history shared by countless other Polish families marked by the Holocaust. Visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau was a visceral act of remembrance and reconnection. There, I began an artistic process with my immediate family: each of us wrote my great-grandmother’s number, 28955, in our own handwriting—beginning with my father, from whom this lineage descends.

Each handwritten number became a portrait. In the slight tremble, pressure, or angle of the strokes, one can feel the emotional imprint of each family member. These variations reveal not just personality, but a collective grief carried across generations. This act became a ritual of remembrance—one of the most profound things we’ve ever done as a family.

I later had the number tattooed on my left arm. A permanent mark. A gesture of connection—both backward, to those lost, and forward, toward those still to come.

Project 28955 is an ongoing multidisciplinary exploration of personal and collective memory. Through archival research, photography, video, performance, and handwriting analysis, I aim to construct a layered narrative—one that captures not only my family's story but also speaks to the broader Polish experience of war, trauma, and survival.

As part of the process, I will document reactions from family members as they read the preserved letters—shooting portraits that hold space for their emotions. I plan to collaborate with a graphologist to analyze the handwriting in these letters, uncovering hidden emotional traces embedded in ink. This analysis will inform a body of work blending visual and written media.

We now mark over 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. As time distances us from the events of the Holocaust, I have found that many are choosing to forget or disconnect from the past. This project challenges that silence.

To remember is to resist erasure.
To retell is to reclaim.
To create is to carry memory forward.

Project 28955 is not just about loss—it is about identity, inheritance, and the enduring power of storytelling. It is a reminder that history lives within us, and it is our responsibility to keep speaking its truths.