Sunshine is a constant presence in Rhodesli memories, like a brilliant backdrop that lights up their recollections. With the onset of discrimination, persecution and finally deportation at the hands of fascists and nazis, a dark shadow fell across the Jewish community of Rhodes and Kos. Hence the concept of eclipse, a metaphor for the way that the Jewish presence was wiped out in the space of a few hours, only – unlike so many other communities – to reappear elsewhere, on and far from Rhodes, beyond the Shoah, in the traditions and the memory of a community still settled around the world in various countries.

The pattern of that diaspora provided the template for this project, involving widespread institutions and attempting to transcend language barriers and open a direct channel with descendants and any others who may be able to contribute documents and materials to a research process that is still ongoing.

Using both a physical installation and a web portal, the project aims to visualize, in a variety of formats, the results of years of research by the CDEC Foundation based on published and unpublished sources: documents, photographs, moving image and sound materials and other objects and artefacts, from the Foundation’s own historical archive and from major Italian and international archives.

Our objective is to reconstruct the identity of the 1,817 deportees, restoring to each their name, date and place of birth and the names of their parents. The task is symbolically entrusted to visitors, too, who are called upon – in an installation that has deliberately been left ‘silent’ – to fill the gaps of a history and memory that must otherwise become blurred in outline and diminished in significance for our present time.