Loli Kantor: Call Me Lola: In Search of Mother

Loli Kantor: Call Me Lola: In Search of Mother by Aline SmithsonFebruary 24, 2025

©Loli Kantor, Book Cover for Call Me Lola: In Search of Mother, published by Hatje Cantz

©Loli Kantor, Book Cover for Call Me Lola: In Search of Mother, published by Hatje Cantz

Photographer Loli Kantor recently released a powerful and poignant monograph, Call Me Lola: In Search of Mother, published by Hatje Cantz Verlag. The book is about searching, about loss and the ravages of war, but ultimately about the power of familial love. The result is a self-created family album of sorts filled with proof of existence, proof of memories, proof of love. The work takes us on her journey of discovery on trains, on streets in Poland, in hotel rooms, and most importantly, in the internal and eternal search for self.

For over twenty years, she combed through the family archives of her Polish-born father, a doctor and political activist. The focus is on her mother, Lola, who died in childbirth: a woman who manifests herself principally through images and stories rather than direct memories. The family documents and photographs that retrace the artist’s personal history are shown in combination with new camera-based works, making the project a profoundly subjective reflection on the most significant upheavals of the twentieth century, on war and displacement, love and loss, trauma and grief.

An interview with the artist follows.

Loli Kantor on Press

©Loli Kantor, Spread from Call Me Lola: In Search of Mother, published by Hatje Cantz

©Loli Kantor, Spread from Call Me Lola: In Search of Mother, published by Hatje Cantz

©Loli Kantor, Spread from Call Me Lola: In Search of Mother, published by Hatje Cantz

Loli Kantor: Call Me Lola: In Search of Mother

Deeply personal, my work speaks to the wider upheavals of the 20th and 21^st century: love and loss, war and displacement, trauma and bereavement.

A daughter of Holocaust survivors, I began my work in east central Europe in 2002. At first, I was searching for clues about my own family, visiting my father and mother’s hometowns in Poland, their city archives and getting to know their histories better. My work took a turn in 2005-2012 to a more universal point of view- to investigate the lives of the surviving Jews in Ukraine and Poland and the non-Jews who were instrumental in preserving Jewish culture in the post Holocaust and the Soviet regime that followed. I focused on the Jewish presence and absence there. The work was published in 2014 by the University of Texas Press.

Around 2014 I turned back to complete my autobiographical based work, investigating family archives and making new work about my own story of loss – My own Holocaust: The loss of my mother at birth, the loss of my father at 14years of age, displacement and the untimely loss of my brother in “Call Me Lola. In Search of Mother” published by Hatje Cantz Verlag in 2024.

©Loli Kantor, Between Destinations from Call Me Lola: In Search of Mother, published by Hatje Cantz

©Loli Kantor, Blue from Call Me Lola: In Search of Mother, published by Hatje Cantz

LOLI KANTOR (*1952) is an Israeli-American photographer whose work centers on personal and cultural memory. She lives and works in Fort Worth, Texas.

Instagram: @LOLIKANTOR_PHOTO_ARTIST

@HATJECANTZVERLAG

SIGNED COPY: directly from the author www.lolikantor.com

©Loli Kantor, Green Poland from Call Me Lola: In Search of Mother, published by Hatje Cantz

Tell Us About You growing up and what brought you to photography

I was born in Paris and grew up in Israel. My parents were Polish Jews who lost nearly their entire families in the Holocaust. As such, we lost all our photographs and family mementos. My parents met in Munich, Germany and married in 1946. Their first child, my brother Amikam (“Ami”) Yehuda, was born in Munich in March 1948, and later that year, they emigrated to Israel.

My parents decided to leave Israel for the United States in 1951. My mother was seven months pregnant with me and they chose Paris and what was known as an excellent hospital and its new maternity ward as the place for my birth. My mother Lola died 2 hours after my birth. My father returned to Israel with 4-year-old Ami to bury my mother and resume his medical practice at a hospital in Tel Aviv, and I stayed in Paris with a French caretaker who was recommended to him by a dear friend.

I was flown back to Israel at nine months old to reunite with my father and brother. My father remarried twice. When I was fourteen years old, my father died suddenly, and I moved to live to a nearby town to live with my father’s cousin and family in the middle of my freshmen year. I would note that this was the hardest transition for me.

I believe that part of the reason I was always drawn to photography and archival research is to address absences and turmoil I experienced in my own life story, and to better understand my father and mother’s lives. In Call Me Lola, I bring together the stories, photography, and documentation I’ve built up over many years around my nuclear family.

©Loli Kantor, Heartfelt from Call Me Lola: In Search of Mother, published by Hatje Cantz

Congratulations on the book! Let’s start at the beginning and understand the journey to making this work.

Growing up, I was exposed to visual art and music. Photography was always a passion, but I did not consider making it a profession until later in life. But I remember loving photography – I started with family photos, and loved making them with simple point and shoot cameras especially photographing my three children constantly.

In 1998 my husband and I volunteered for a medical trip to Mali. I was still working as a physical therapist and brought a camera and film to document the events we participated in, which I printed when we returned, based on a weekend class I’d taken on how to print black and white photographs in the darkroom. Soon after, I also became involved with a local homegrown theatre, documenting its behind-the-scenes and live productions in black and white film. Self-taught with some advice from a dear friend, I purchased a professional camera and continued working with the theater. In July, 2001 I attended a documentary workshop in Amherst college with DoubleTake magazine, becoming enamored with documentary work. I attended a master class with Mary Ellen Mark as well as classes with documentary filmmakers Fredrick Weisman and Ken Burns. Immediately after I returned home from this impactful event I submitted my resignation, ending a 30-year career to turn my full attention to photography.

In 2004, I went to Poland for a month to volunteer at a reclamation project in the former concentration camp Plaszow, which is in today’s city of Krakow. My goal was to immerse myself in the country where my parents and grandparents came from and venture out into my mother’s hometown, Bochnia, and to my father’s hometown, Częstochowa to look for traces of their pasts before and during the Holocaust. I spent time in each of those city’s archives to learn who my grandparents, aunts and uncles were—their names, what they did, and where they lived. I believe that this planted the seed for the rest of my research, and solidified my connection to my parents’ world. I finally began to feel a sense of understanding of their lives during and after the Holocaust, where the majority of their families disappeared.

©Loli Kantor, Krakow from Call Me Lola: In Search of Mother, published by Hatje Cantz

How did the book that was released in 2014 inform this part of the story?

In my forward to “Beyond The Forest” (University of Texas Press, 2014) I touch on my personal background and how it led to my extensive documentary work about the (slow) reemergence of Jewish culture in Poland and Ukraine after World War II and the subsequent Soviet Regime. Following my initial trip to Poland and the shocking realization that my family was indeed exterminated by the Nazis, I started my research in 2004 to see how the remaining Jews lived and what their lives were like within the larger Jewish landscape in east central Europe. Initially, the Jews I met in Poland were second generation, tourists, or rabbis sent to help the remaining communities regain their cultural and Jewish rituals. I wanted to find those in their 70s and 80s who had survived the Holocaust and stayed in Poland or Ukraine to document their stories. I imagined the process taking one or two years but I ended up continuing the work and research for nearly a decade. Each time I returned to the region, I deepened my connections with community members, non-Jews and Jews, who were instrumental in preserving Jewish culture there and who helped me in my research. These lasting friendships allowed me to witness and participate in some meaningful transitions and inflection points for these small communities. Throughout this process, I learned what it takes to delve into the present and follow up on the various aspects of documenting a people and a culture. It also helped me to close my curiosity about the general story of the Holocaust and to return to the story of my family within the Holocaust, and my own story as a second Generation to survivors. This, in turn, gave me the peace of mind to look into the tragic moments that define my own losses: my mother Lola, my father Zwi and my brother Ami. The friends I made in Poland helped me in researching the story of my parents and especially that of my mother.

©Loli Kantor, La Varenne Memorial from Call Me Lola: In Search of Mother, published by Hatje Cantz

©Loli Kantor, Lola, Germany from Call Me Lola: In Search of Mother, published by Hatje Cantz

Can you share a story or two about discovering more about your mother and the research involved?

I discovered early on that my mother survived the holocaust with a false ID as a Roman Catholic, hiding in plain sight, possibly in Warsaw, where her ID card was created. I found this important document among the many papers I was sorting through. I found the place where she lived (as stated on this false card) when I was meeting up with new friends in a Warsaw cafe who drew my attention to the address: 37 Nowy Swiat, which was the building next to the cafe we were sitting in!

Another fact I learned was that my mother Lola was four years older than I thought she was, and the year stated on her grave. After the war ended, she continued to use the birth year of 1918, which was printed on her false card. Apparently, even my father did not know her true year of birth. I found this out after having difficulty finding anything about her in the town archive, and later turned to the city museum, where the director found her true identity via her registration. This was quite a shock.

How did making the book expand the knowledge of your parents and how did making the book change you internally?

Naturally, every photograph and document I held and investigated expanded my knowledge about my parents. I believe that some of this knowledge may have been propped up by my imagination or what I made of it in my mind. But over the course of creating the book, I felt as if I spent important years of my life with them that I wished I’d had earlier in my life. I was very close to my father and losing him in my freshman year of high school was very traumatic for me. Although I think about him every day, spending time with what he saved and kept showed me his love and concern for us – for my mother, for my brother and for me. Obviously he intended for his personal archive to be found by us one day. Their love for each other was palpable.

In my mother’s case – spending all this time and researching every photograph and document of her helped me find out who she was, helped me to know her, and helped me understand which parts of myself and my brother come from her. I cultivated a sense that I was truly “spending time with her” – even now, it almost feels authentic, as if I REALLY spent time with her. Although the connection was made real only by me, and sustained by my own observations and assumptions, it was the closest I’ve come to a dialogue with her about who she was, and who I became.

Let’s talk about the book itself- did you work with a designer and how much input did you have in the book design.

I worked with the wonderful Probsteibooks – a Cologne-based design firm owned by designers Andreas Tetzlaff & Sabine Pflitsch. Sabine was the primary designer, and Andreas added consulting as needed— so I had ongoing input on the design throughout. We worked wonderfully together; they helped me catalyze the look and feel I wanted for each page of the book throughout the process. We communicated throughout with my publisher, Hatje Cantz, to streamline ideas and decisions about the book. I also had essential input from the introduction essay author, Dr. Nissan N. Perez, who also edited the work with me and curated the book’s sequencing; those recommendations also influenced the designer and how we worked with the material. Overall, the book’s content and aesthetic are a result of a truly wonderful collaboration.

I Hope that in making this book and honoring your family, you have found a certain connection to the past and a sense of peace.

My father would be thrilled with the book. I assume my mother would, as well. It has definitely given me an even deeper connection to my mother Lola and peace of mind knowing that a bridge now exists between my past family and those in my family’s future generations who will come to find those we lost.