The Last Jews of Liuh

These are not photographs. These are images. I made them by harnessing a creative collaboration between my imagination and the OpenAI deep learning model known as DALL-E 2. 

My father’s mother (Ruth) was born in 1897 in a shtetl called Liuh, in the western region of the Russian Empire. It was a place of poverty and hardship, and the Jews of Liuh lived under the threat of violent attack at all times. At the same time, it was a community of people, and there were celebrations and weddings, birthdays and bar mitzvot. Most important, there was a deep sense of belonging and purpose. 

Ruth’s father, my great-grandfather, left Liuh for the New World in 1904, part of the great wave of Eastern European immigration to America. He settled in Hartford, Connecticut and worked for seven years to scrape together the money for the passage for his two young daughters and his second wife. They sailed steerage class from Odessa to Boston in 1911. My grandmother was 14 years old. 

As a place, Liuh hasn’t existed in nearly a century now. Any Jews who did not leave before 1920 were more than likely murdered by Hitler in the early 40’s. Those who remained were “relocated” by Stalin’s bulldozers. 

With this work, I am recreating the story of my story. On my father’s mother’s side, I can only go back the two generations: Ruth, then my father (and then me). There are no letters, no photographs, no diaries. 

I chose to work with AI because the little I do have — memories, bits of stories and an active imagination — can serve as prompts (natural language descriptions). 

I am the last of the Selwyn Jews. One of the last Jews of Liuh. 

The book, “The Last Jews of Liuh,” is available for purchase.