Discovering my father’s wartime photo

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Discovering my father’s wartime photo

I can’t even begin to describe the feelings I had when I discovered an envelope filled with negatives of photographs my father took during his time in Burma in World War II. This envelope contained several medium-format and 35mm negatives he took while serving in the 14th Army, Royal Armoured Corps, which was a tank corps of the British Army.

Years ago, I discovered a box full of hundreds of negatives he had taken after the war when he emigrated to the USA and travelled around and photographed post-war America. I’ve gone through them a few times and scanned a number of them, but I was astonished to realize I had somehow missed this particular envelope containing these special photographs from his time in the war.

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My grandfather Kostja

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My grandfather Kostja

My grandfather Kostja Zetkin had an extremely interesting life. I didn’t get to spend a lot of time talking to him when I visited him at his home in British Columbia when I was younger, by that time he would speak mostly German to me with a big smile on his face completely forgetting that I didn’t understand a word he said. He was my step-grandfather as my grandmother Gertrude married him well after my father had been born.

This is a picture of Kostja as a young man on the left and as a much younger man on the right with his girlfriend Rosa Luxembourg. Kostja’s mother was Clara Zetkin, one of the leaders of the Weimar Republic and a staunch working-class feminist and advocate for women’s rights.

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…scanned from my archive. My grandmother Fanny

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…scanned from my archive. My grandmother Fanny

My grandmother Fanny was one of the sweetest and kindest people I ever knew, almost to a fault. She lived for her family and friends and would literally do anything to help or support them, but as a result I always wondered about her own happiness.

She raised my mother and her brother Jerry, and helped my grandfather Boris run his photo studio on the boardwalk, just downstairs from their ocean view apartment in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. I of course have dozens of photos my grandfather took of her, posing almost demurely for the camera in his studio, on the boardwalk, the beach or their roof (otherwise known as tar beach). These two photos were mixed in amongst them all, but stood out because they were not the typical poses or expressions I see in most of the other photos of her.

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…scanned from my archive. 1969 - Fifty years ago I went to Woodstock

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…scanned from my archive. 1969 - Fifty years ago I went to Woodstock

I arrived at the Woodstock Festival three days before it was scheduled to start. My friend Clifford and I actually had tickets for the festival, we were 14 and 15 years old respectively and ready for anything. Cliff’s mom was going to be driving to her country home near Bethel and she offered to drive us up, but the deal was we had to go up a few days early if we wanted the ride.

When we arrived, we found the few people already there doing the work of building and putting together the festival grounds. We somehow migrated to the area the Hog Farm had set up, they had a free kitchen that fed us and in return we helped build some concession stands and other structures around the area. They also gave us free hash breaks, which made the work a bit more pleasant.

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…scanned from my archive. My mom’s 97th birthday

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…scanned from my archive. My mom’s 97th birthday

…scanned from my archive. My mom’s 97th birthday

Yikes! Today my mom turned 97 today. In honor of this event I pulled out a few of my favorites and a few I’ve not shared before.

I literally have hundreds of photos of my mother growing up in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. As I’ve mentioned many times, my grandfather had a photo studio right on the boardwalk near Brighton 4th Street. In our family, growing up in front of the camera was a big part of our lives. My mother, her brother Jerry, myself and my cousins Michael and Leslee all spent part of our formative years posing in the studio for my grandfather.

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…scanned from my archive. Boris Lenoff, Fire Island 1958

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…scanned from my archive. Boris Lenoff, Fire Island 1958. While growing up, there were always certain photos that seemed to be present, either in frames on the wall, taped to cabinets, stuck to the fridge or in one of the several photo albums lying around. My father and my mother’s father Boris, were usually the photographers of most of the family photos, so they aren’t present in as many of the family photos as other family members. Boris was a professional photographer, so like myself, he was usually much more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it.

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…scanned from my archive. Mom, circa 1928

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…scanned from my archive. Mom, circa 1928

…scanned from my archive. Mom, circa 1928. Mom just celebrated her 96th birthday last week. She’s here in LA, a long way from her Brighton Beach, Brooklyn roots, but she is close to her family, especially her grandson, and that is more important to her than geography. These are a couple of photos taken in her father’s photo studio which was located on the first floor of the apartment building she grew up in. The entrance to the building was on Brighton 4th street, but my grandfather’s studio was entered to directly from the Coney Island Boardwalk, just a hop, skip and a jump from the beach and the…

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