After 73 Years, Photographs Are Returned to Their Owners On Wednesday, October 24, the Yeshiva University Museum hosted the opening reception for their newest exhibition, “Lost & Found: A Family Photo Album.” Approximately 150 people came to view the photographs that had been smuggled out of the Kovno Ghetto by Annushka Matz Warshawska in 1943 and preserved by the Fedaravičius family, who were not Jewish, until the return of the album in 2016 to the descendants of the original family, which includes Dr. Jacob Wisse, the director of YU Museum and Annushka’s great-nephew. After the chance to spend an hour with the photos, which had been neatly arranged in display cases along with silk-screened banners, a slide show, several video stations and a family tree taking up one full wall of the exhibit space, the people heard remarks from several family members and people crucial to the success of the exhibition: author and professor David Roskies (Annushka’s nephew); Richard Schofield, founder and creative director of the International Centre for Litvak Photography; Eva Raby, former director of the Montreal Jewish Public Library (Annushka’s niece); Jennifer Roskies, chief of staff for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (Annushka’s great-niece); and author and professor Ruth Wisse (Annushka’s niece). The evening ended with the presentation of an Attestation of Righteousness to Juozas Fedaravičius and his family, accepted on their behalf by Schofield, which thanked the family for having “preserved for us a precious part of our family legacy, and for everyone a vivid testimony of our heritage.”

Front row (left to right): Shana Roskies, Rena Mande, Joanna Halperin, Eva Raby, Jennifer Roskies, Jaime Roskies, Ruth Wisse; Back row (left to right): Aryeh Roskies, David Roskies, Jacob Wisse, Jacob Raby, Richard Schofield

The exhibition runs through March 10th, 2019. The Yeshiva University Museum is located at 15 West 16th Street, in New York City.