Hyfler/Rosner
2004-03-05 13:56:07 UTC
Once again, taken from the paid obits of The New York Times.
Once again, great photos. Our Steve is on a roll.
Leni Sonnenfeld, 96, Photographer of Jewish History
By STEPHEN MILLER Staff Reporter of the Sun
Leni Sonnenfeld, who died February 26, was a photographer
who left a rich legacy of images of Jewish history from
1930s Berlin, World War II, and the founding and later
history of Israel. As free-lance photographers working for
New York publications, she and her husband, Herbert, covered
assignments all over the world, amassing an archive of about
200,000 negatives, each neatly filed on the upper floor of
their West Side apartment.
In the early 1930s, Herbert traveled to Palestine, then a
British mandate.As a hobbyist, he took many photos, which he
was able to sell. Because he was a Jew, he lost his job with
the police department when the Nazis came to power. He
turned to photography for a living, and Leni started out as
his darkroom assistant. They shot riveting portraits of
Jewish life in 1930s Berlin, a world irretrievably
destroyed.
Narrowly escaping Germany in 1939, the couple settled in
New York, where Herbert immediately found work at Yeshiva
University and later was drafted into the U.S. Army. Leni
began taking assignments on her own that would eventually
take her to Spain, Morocco, Iran, and elsewhere.
"I was not a news journalist," she told the Columbia
Journalism Review in 1996. "I was a feature journalist, a
storyteller." Her photos appeared in the New York Times,
Life, the Jewish Week, and Hadassah magazine, among many
others. Later, her photos were collected by the U.S.
Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Juedisches Museum in Berlin,
the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and many others.
Herbert died in 1972, leaving Sonnenfeld to care for
their growing archive of negatives. She later regretted
selling off the couple's Berlin photos to the Juedisches
Museum. At the time of her death she was considering offers
from a number of major American and Israeli institutions for
the rest of her materials, with the stipulation that they be
held as a single archive.
This fall, Yale University Press will publish "Eyes of
Memory," a book of the Sonnenfelds' photography, including
an autobiographical essay by Leni.
Stubbornly independent, she continued to take assignments
into her 80s and surprised friends by lugging a heavy
suitcase crammed with ancient photographic equipment with
her wherever she went.
In 2002, she was featured in the documentary "Grow Old
Along With Me," in which she was videotaped pushing her own
shopping cart home. Tiny all her life,she had become so
diminutive in old age that she had to reach up to push it.
"I'm not afraid of wrinkles," she said in the
documentary. "Wrinkles in photos are delicious; they show a
person has lived and suffered."
Leni Sonnenfeld
Born in Berlin in 1907; died at Beth Israel Medical
Center on February 26; she leaves no direct survivors.
Once again, great photos. Our Steve is on a roll.
Leni Sonnenfeld, 96, Photographer of Jewish History
By STEPHEN MILLER Staff Reporter of the Sun
Leni Sonnenfeld, who died February 26, was a photographer
who left a rich legacy of images of Jewish history from
1930s Berlin, World War II, and the founding and later
history of Israel. As free-lance photographers working for
New York publications, she and her husband, Herbert, covered
assignments all over the world, amassing an archive of about
200,000 negatives, each neatly filed on the upper floor of
their West Side apartment.
In the early 1930s, Herbert traveled to Palestine, then a
British mandate.As a hobbyist, he took many photos, which he
was able to sell. Because he was a Jew, he lost his job with
the police department when the Nazis came to power. He
turned to photography for a living, and Leni started out as
his darkroom assistant. They shot riveting portraits of
Jewish life in 1930s Berlin, a world irretrievably
destroyed.
Narrowly escaping Germany in 1939, the couple settled in
New York, where Herbert immediately found work at Yeshiva
University and later was drafted into the U.S. Army. Leni
began taking assignments on her own that would eventually
take her to Spain, Morocco, Iran, and elsewhere.
"I was not a news journalist," she told the Columbia
Journalism Review in 1996. "I was a feature journalist, a
storyteller." Her photos appeared in the New York Times,
Life, the Jewish Week, and Hadassah magazine, among many
others. Later, her photos were collected by the U.S.
Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Juedisches Museum in Berlin,
the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and many others.
Herbert died in 1972, leaving Sonnenfeld to care for
their growing archive of negatives. She later regretted
selling off the couple's Berlin photos to the Juedisches
Museum. At the time of her death she was considering offers
from a number of major American and Israeli institutions for
the rest of her materials, with the stipulation that they be
held as a single archive.
This fall, Yale University Press will publish "Eyes of
Memory," a book of the Sonnenfelds' photography, including
an autobiographical essay by Leni.
Stubbornly independent, she continued to take assignments
into her 80s and surprised friends by lugging a heavy
suitcase crammed with ancient photographic equipment with
her wherever she went.
In 2002, she was featured in the documentary "Grow Old
Along With Me," in which she was videotaped pushing her own
shopping cart home. Tiny all her life,she had become so
diminutive in old age that she had to reach up to push it.
"I'm not afraid of wrinkles," she said in the
documentary. "Wrinkles in photos are delicious; they show a
person has lived and suffered."
Leni Sonnenfeld
Born in Berlin in 1907; died at Beth Israel Medical
Center on February 26; she leaves no direct survivors.