regina + charles / the grandparents project
this is charles & regina.married for almost seventy years. born in poland & immigrated to canada shortly after they were married. charles turned ninety-seven this month!they continue to live in the beautiful house where they raised their family in toronto. it is filled with photos and paintings on the walls & every piece holds a story. every morning in bed, regina prays for peace in the world & between people. they welcomed dave & i one afternoon along with their grandchildren & were so kind to share so much of their story with us.both are survivors of the holocaust. charles was interred at auschwitz, from 1942 until the liberation. regina was a teenager, and hid in the forest during the war. by day, they would hide literally underground, coming up at night when it was safer to search for food in darkness. she tells the story with clarity, about the moment the war had ended and they finally walked back into the city, shivering into krakow, she says, wondering about who of all the people they knew before the war had made it. they describe that feeling, of everyone searching for someone they knew, to be reconnected with the life they once knew. regina tells of how she found a friend who told her that charles, a distant cousin, had survived. they met up, fell in love, & were married. regina's favourite thing about him is his sense of humour. she says whenever she gets too serious about something, he balances her out.when we asked them what they've learned in all the years they've been married, they gave us this advice : sometimes you just need to look the other way -- we are all human you know. grace & forgiveness. i love that.i cannot even begin to fathom the things they have seen, experienced, shared, and fought for to build the life they have. it's humbling and beautiful. thank you to our friends james & urszula for sharing your bubbie & zaddie's beautiful story with us.
a bit more about the grandparents project :the idea came out of us spending a few days with both of my sets of grandparents in europe last summer. the photos we took, i will always cherish. they are my grandparents, the way i remember them. (see the photos here & here). the idea stuck in our heads, but life happens & we didn't really do anything about it. then, this winter, the last remaining of dave's grandparents, dave's grandma sadly passed & we thought, we've got to do this. what's stopping us? we have the ability & love of documenting people, so let's do this. we think it's important.we are looking to photograph your older loved ones, in their homes, with their keepsakes and memories. share some tea & listen to some stories & take a few photos of them in their space. there's no age requirement, no quota we are looking to fill, we will just take these as they come to us. to celebrate a lifetime of memories. we've been touched by photographs & hearing stories from people in our own lives & think it's important. we want to share that.