Meditate with Léon Herschritt (1936-2020)

The winter was harsh that year in Berlin. And not just because the snow is there. A much colder cold fell on the city in the middle of August. Indeed, while the former capital of Germany was barely rising from its ashes, it was hit by a terrifying paralysis, symbolized by the “wall of shame”. Léon Herschritt wanted to bear witness to this. This young humanist photographer had cut his teeth just a few months earlier, photographing the children of the Algerian population, whom he had observed during his military service. In Berlin, he wanders for a long time through the streets which have become dead ends. Because this painful scar separates families, cuts romantic impulses, restricts freedoms.

In the western sector, occupied by French forces, he captures in an instant the madness of this rupture with this almost surreal scene: standing on the roof of a sedan still covered in snow, a woman and a man, looking into the distance, beckon from their outstretched arms to acquaintances remaining on the other side. At the intersection of Bergstrasse and Bernauerstrasse, if hope hits a wall, humans still want to believe in it. The great gray sky of mist, however, seems to erase the memories of the other world, permanently lost. Paradoxically, the experience of separation brings together people who love each other in the same expectation, made of pain but also of tenderness.