Photo: Kabren Levinson

Today, I am the Artistic and Executive Director of a multi-media Locker of Memory Memorial Project located at the Jungfernhof concentration camp on the outskirts of Riga, Latvia. I am the granddaughter of murdered victims. In 1941, 3985 German and Austrian Jews were imprisoned and killed at the camp, in neighboring camps, or in the surrounding forests. Only 149 persons survived. The stories about camp life are filled with brutality and sorrow. The project is focused on restoring dignity and social justice to victims and their families. Going from the personal to the social, I examine the line between forgetting and remembering past atrocities that resonate with personal stories about loss.

When I visited the camp in 2007, and again in 2010, the land was strewn with refuse and piles of rotting garbage. In 2019, I learned the camp had been transformed into a recreation park. The trash was gone, and the pitted surface had been leveled and regraded. There was no hint of prior violence. The mass grave containing up to 800 bodies was incongruous with what was now an idyllic landscape for leisure and relaxation.

Photo Nikolajs Krasnopevcevs

Horrified by the absence of memory, I secured perfunctory permissions from Latvian authorities to establish plans for a memorial at the site. I wrote grants and began working with historians and scientists to recover the history of the camp and locate the mass grave purported to contain up to 800 bodies. In 2023, scientists using non-invasive ground penetrating radar found animal bone fragments and in 2014, they identified foundational stones for barracks built in 1942 to house prisoners. Research continues.  

In April 2024, I directed and produced a two-day multimedia “Day of Remembrance” event as part of the Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts at Brandeis University. For this occasion, I created a ceremony with participatory elements to include a large-scale mourning shroud made from cloth for the victims of the Jungfernhof concentration camp. A mourning shroud for mass graves and group burials is a new idea. Rooted in the traditional ritual of wrapping individual bodies in shrouds for solitary burial, I am considering the unique circumstance of mass graves, often containing hundreds of unburied bodies. How might a morning shroud be developed for mass graves, used to consecrate the land without disrupting the sanctity of bodies already located in the ground? Given the current proliferation of mass graves in war-torn territories, how can this idea be used to instill dignity to burial grounds following catastrophic losses of unfathomable proportions?

The “Day of Remembrance” event took place in Waltham where I grew up. I am now joining a community of local historians, investigating the MetFern cemetery, where 296 unnamed bodies of students with intellectual disabilities, institutionalized at the Fernald State School, were placed anonymously into the ground and forgotten. A second mourning shroud will explore the question, “What does it mean to be human?”

Preoccupied with how human beings are valued and discarded, remembered and forgotten, I work in a variety of contexts with a range of materials. I create large-scale video installations in public space and I make small, intimate objects that evoke feelings of privacy.

Memory inhabits the core of my being. I am drawn to the stories we inherit and the stories we live. The Holocaust feels especially rich, layered with images that stimulate my imagination, confronting my deepest fears and values about what truly matters.

Photo Mike E. Dunne

Selected Publications and Interviews
about My Work

Frostig, K. (2024). “A Gathering in Boston: Remembering the Jungfernhof Concentration Camp.” Ivar Brod (Ed). In The Latvian Jewish Courier. August 2024|Tammuz/Av, 5784. Jewish Survivors of Latvia, Inc. Vol. 38, No. 1, pp.4-6. Taken from  <https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57d6e4024402432e8c507af9/t/66ce7d7d4b93cc017ea1b9e3/1724808582417/Courier+August+2024.pdf>

Goldenberg, A. (2024). The Dead Under The Potato Field. The missing mass grave: 3800 German and Austrian Jews died in a concentration camp in Riga. But the planned memorial is missing. July 3, 2024. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. No. 52, p. 13. Taken from <https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/in-einem-kz-in-riga-starben-3800-juden-doch-das-grab-wird-gesucht-19827990.html>

Frostig, K. (2024). Report about Jungfernhof. Endangered Sites. International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). 23.08.2023. Taken from <https://holocaustremembrance.com/what-we-do/our-work/ihra-project-safeguarding-sites>

Blumberg, D. L.  (2024). “Nearly 4,000 Jews died at Jungfernhof, a Nazi camp in Latvia. This artist is fighting for a memorial to them.” Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Culture. 17.05.24. Taken from https://www.jta.org/2024/05/17/culture/nearly-4000-jews-died-at-jungfernhof-a-nazi-camp-in-latvia-this-artist-is-fighting-for-a-memorial-to-them

Article syndicated to four additional newspapers, including: The Jerusalem Post, The Forward, The Times of Israel, Cleveland Jewish News, and Tachles the Jewish Magazine (Switzerland).

Imran, A. (2023). “Unlocking forgotten memories of the Holocaust: An artist’s journey to uncover her family history grew into a decades long mission to establish a memorial for the victims of the Jungfernhof concentration camp.”  International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. 23.08.2023. Taken from https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/news-archive/unlocking-forgotten-memories-holocaust

United Nations General Assembly Hall. (2023). Holocaust Memorial Ceremony 2023 – International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. Meetings and Events. UNWeb TV. January 27, 2023. https://media.un.org/en/asset/k1j/k1jjl8fwc5

Blumenthal, R. (2023). On Holocaust Remembrance Day, the U.N. Hears of a Little-Known Killing Field. New York Times January 27. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/27/arts/holocaust-remembrance-day-latvia.html?smid=em-share  and updated in print Sunday January 28, 2023, Section One, p. 17.

McQuaid, C. (2023). Karen Frostig’s ‘Locker of Memory’ reclaims lost Holocaust history. Sunday Arts, N3. The Boston Globe. January 29, 2023. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/01/29/arts/karen-frostigs-locker-memory-reclaims-lost-holocaust-history/

Bolton-Fasman, J. (2023). Memorializing an Overlooked Chapter in Holocaust History: Jungfernhof. History & Holocaust. Top Pick January 25. JewishBoston https://www.jewishboston.com/read/memorializing-an-overlooked-chapter-in-holocaust-history-jungfernhof/?pagination_id_param=2

Lebovic, M. (2023). Obscure Nazi concentration camp in Latvia put back on map by art professor. The Times of Israel.20 April 2023. Taken from: https://www.timesofisrael.com/obscure-nazi-concentration-camp-in-latvia-put-back-on-map-by-art-professor/

Gizunterman, S. (2023). The Latvian Jewish Courier. June 2023/Sivan 5783. Volume 17, No. 1., pp. 1-2.

Goodman, L. (2022) Burying the past is not an option. Featured Stories. Brandeis Magazine. Winter-Spring 2022. https://www.brandeis.edu/magazine/2022/winter-spring/featured-stories/frostig.html

The Vienna Project.(2014). ORF Radio Interviews: with Kerstin Tretina. Broadcast 16.
October 2014. http://religion.orf.at/radio/stories/2675549/ and http://oe1.orf.at/artikel/389346

The Vienna Project. (2013).ORF Television Interviews: Sunday Matinee Oct. 20th, Prime Time Sunday eve. http://tv.orf.at/groups/kultur/pool/parcoursdeserinnerns.
Oct. 27th, and radio interview by mag.a barbara köppel, moderator/rproducer

Frey, E. (2013). "Vienna Project: Gedenkaktion als persönliche Identitätssuche.” Der Standard. Kopf der Tages. 24. October 2013. http://derstandard.at/1381369783900/Vienna-Project-Gedenkaktion-als-persoenliche-Identitaetssuche