Photographer In Focus
Alan Metnick is a photographer and visual artist based in Providence, Rhode Island. Born in Chicago in 1941, his work spans photography, painting, sculpture, stained glass, and textile. As a photographer, Metnick has documented places as diverse as the United States, Israel, Turkey, Lebanon, Italy, and Belize. But perhaps his most enduring subject has become Poland. In 2004, he traveled to Poland to see the land of his ancestors and visit Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. After encountering the destroyed and overgrown remains of Jewish cemetery in the town of Slawatycze, where his maternal grandmother lived, Metnick started working to preserve Poland’s Jewish heritage. He also got involved in promoting dialogue with Polish young people to eradicate anti-Semitism. In 2016, Metnick published Captured in Memory, a bilingual English-Polish book featuring his photography from more than ten trips to Poland his reflections on visiting the country as a Jew. The following is a small selection of Metnick’s photographs of Poland.
