Defying deniers, photographer chronicles the ache and resilience of October 7

The experiences and feelings of October 7, 2023, should be contemporary, however how the day might be described and remembered relies upon largely on testimonies and pictures. Photojournalist Chen G. Schimmel got down to seize pictures that inform the story—its grief, braveness and human price. Her pictures grew to become a guide, a testomony to bearing witness and making certain that the occasions of October 7 are by no means erased or denied.

In an interview, Schimmel discusses what compelled her to take this journey, the way it reshaped her view of the world and why images can inform these tales in methods no different medium can.

She defined why she was compelled to choose up her digicam and head to the websites of the October 7 assaults—locations nonetheless reeling from unimaginable horror. Her new guide, October seventh, Bearing Witness, crammed with stark and evocative pictures, affords a view few others captured in these first chaotic days and within the aftermath of the tragedy.

Schimmel instructed me she and her household have been in Jerusalem that morning when the sirens started. “We all ran to the shelter,” she recalled. Her youthful brother, newly drafted into the military, ran to seize his telephone. “He came back pale and said, ‘Dead soldiers’ bodies everywhere.’” At that time, she mentioned, nobody totally understood what was unfolding. “The country was in shock. Everyone was trying to figure out how to help.”

Each member of her household discovered a manner. “My mother helped wounded soldiers, my brothers collected clothing for evacuees from abroad and my father volunteered with ZAKA,” she mentioned, referring to the emergency group accountable for recovering and getting ready the lifeless for burial in keeping with Jewish legislation. “It’s not just about finding body parts,” she defined. “They clean every last drop of blood to ensure a dignified burial.”

When her father returned from his first mission, Schimmel mentioned she may see the toll it had taken. “There was a blankness in his eyes,” she instructed me. “He’d seen something no one should ever have to see.” That second grew to become her turning level. “I told him that next time, I wanted to go and document it. I knew this was our history being written, and I wanted to make sure it would never be forgotten.”

Getting to the south was no easy job. “Everything was blocked off, the roads were closed, and rockets were still falling,” she mentioned. “You couldn’t go without a helmet and vest—and there weren’t any left, since every reservist and journalist was trying to get one.” It took a couple of week earlier than she may be a part of ZAKA. “Eight days later, I finally made it down there,” she mentioned. “That’s when my work began.”

I requested what went by way of her thoughts as she photographed the aftermath—what moments she knew she needed to seize, it doesn’t matter what.

“It’s hard to explain,” she mentioned after a pause. “The first thing that stays with me is the smell. It’s something you can’t capture and can’t describe. I wanted somehow to photograph what that smell felt like—the silence, the emptiness, the weight of being there.”

She spoke of houses diminished to ashes, of youngsters’s toys and storybooks stained with blood, of a panorama that appeared each frozen and destroyed. “I wanted to document the darkness, the devastation,” she mentioned quietly. “That silence said everything.”

I requested if there was one {photograph} that would show to the world that October 7 occurred. “That’s a good question,” she mentioned, turning to the pages of her guide. “There are two that I always come back to.”

The first was a part of a sequence she titled Hammer. It got here from her earliest journey south with the ZAKA volunteers. “We entered a house where an elderly man had been beaten to death with a hammer,” she defined. “Most of the homes had bullet holes or RPG damage, but this one didn’t. Just that hammer, lying there.”

In her pictures, ZAKA staff might be seen fastidiously cleansing the small wood deal with and metallic head. “It’s an object meant to build,” she mentioned, “but here it became a weapon. We spent hours brushing the last traces of blood from the corners with toothbrushes—every bit had to be buried with dignity.”

Another picture, she instructed me, has by no means left her. “It was taken in Kibbutz Be’eri,” she mentioned. “A family of seven had been taken hostage through their window. When their relatives came back to the ruins, they searched through the ashes and found a piece of metal buried in the debris. When they brushed it off, it was a menorah.”

That discovery got here simply weeks earlier than Hanukkah. “I returned on the last night and lit candles with them,” Schimmel mentioned. “That photograph captures what this book is about—the darkness and the light, the pain and the resilience.”

Regarding the relations who have been captured, Schimmel added, “It’s amazing to say that since the seven have returned to Israel.” She revealed which scenes had the best impression on her as a photojournalist.

“It’s not the same thing as writing,” she mentioned. “You’re seeing it with color. You’re seeing it through black and white. You’re seeing it through the objects that you’re trying to sift through.”

She mentioned the funerals have been among the many hardest moments to seize. “I photographed and documented countless funerals,” she mentioned. “For me, funerals are probably the most difficult. At funerals, something you cannot document is the wailing sounds. It’s the pain in the families’ voices.”

Since Schimmel is in her early twenties, I puzzled concerning the impression of witnessing so many funerals. “Before October 7, I had only been to one funeral—my grandfather’s,” she mentioned. “Usually, we go to the funerals of those we’re very close to or family members. This felt similar and different, because they are our soldiers and our brothers in arms.”

We talked about her time in Hostages Square, the place she has spent the previous two years photographing and talking with households. “Yes,” she mentioned. “And I think it’s the resilience. Through all the sadness and the devastation, it’s truly the resilience.”

The energy of these she photographed stored her going. “If they can wake up every morning and fight for their most loved ones that are in the darkness, then I have to wake up in the morning and do it for them,” she mentioned. “Through the devastation, you really see the strength of the people.”

One picture close to the top of her guide captures that energy. “This is Rachel and Jon [the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin],” she identified. “There’s this photograph of a soldier who is a double amputee. He’s only 22. And this is him doing—it’s called ‘ninja’ in Israel—but he just swings between these. It’s quite an incredible photo that I think the audience needs to understand. Quite the impact of the word you use—resilience—of someone saying, ‘I can do anything. And it doesn’t matter. Nothing’s going to stop me.’”

The identical spirit was current amongst evacuees returning to ruined houses and amongst Nova pageant survivors. “I spent a few days at a Nova survivor party,” she mentioned. “They’d been through absolute hell, but they were dancing again. That gives me the strength.”

Self-taught and by no means formally having studied images, she evokes younger individuals who imagine they, too, can create one thing significant and lasting. Her pictures have already been exhibited around the globe, and along with her new guide simply launching, I requested what she hopes it is going to obtain.

“My hope for the book is truly for it to be in every Jewish home,” she mentioned. “I know that that is a big dream or goal, but I truly believe it should be.” She added that even the day after the assaults, some individuals have been already denying what had occurred. “Then shouldn’t it be in not just Jewish homes?” I requested. “Well,” she mentioned, “that’s even further. But for us as the Jewish people, to have our history documented and to show it to generations to come is extremely important.”

Schimmel, the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, mentioned, “I actually showed her this book. She was one of the first to see it.” In the foreword, she wrote about her household’s story—how her grandmother’s household escaped from Poland, and the way that legacy shapes her sense of objective. “They didn’t have something like this,” she mentioned. “For me, I’m really holding her story. It doesn’t just start on October 7—it starts further back in my family’s history. That’s where it’s rooted from: to bear witness, so people can never forget or deny these events.”

Day to day, Schimmel works for The Jerusalem Post, and her reporting overseas contains work in Ukraine and Poland. Curious about what she had witnessed and the risks concerned, I invited her to share extra about these experiences.

“It’s not simple,” she mentioned. “People don’t understand that journalism is not an easy field. But if there aren’t people who are brave and willing to do this, then you don’t have documentation of the events of the world.”

She defined that her protection of Ukraine got here earlier than her time at The Jerusalem Post when she was freelancing. “I just knew this was something I wanted to document,” she mentioned. “Do you know the IFCJ—the International Fellowship for Christians and Jews? I went together with them as their photojournalist to document those being evacuated from the war zone. We were providing them with food and shelter.”

Schimmel mentioned she had tried to get permission to go farther in. “I did try to convince them to go there,” she mentioned, “but we were really more on the outskirts, receiving all those who were affected by this devastating war that’s gone on for far too long.”

When I requested concerning the precise warfare zones she had labored in, she mentioned, “That was here at home. In Gaza.”

What’s in retailer for Schimmel’s future? “Right now,” she mentioned, “it’s to document the healing of the country—to document the hostages returning home and the soldiers coming home.” Looking forward, she added, “It’s actually a dream of mine to travel to Africa. I’ve always loved Africa, and to document the wars going on there, the starvation, and the civil wars. It’s definitely something I hope to do—to document anything that tells its story. A story that, if undocumented, the world would not know of.”

Where can her guide be discovered? “On my website, and also in bookstores—the main bookstores in Israel,” she mentioned. “And in the upcoming month, we’re going to be selling the book in the States.”

She added that every one proceeds will go to assist troopers dealing with trauma. “I speak of finding light in the darkness,” she mentioned, “but there are those who wake up every morning in the depths of darkness and don’t find that light. There are soldiers who wake up and can’t. Without them, we would not be here. It’s our job and our duty to heal them and to look after them, because they look after us.”