Hannah Altman's 'Ground Glass' Uses Restored Nazi-Era Lenses to Retrace Holocaust Victim's Final Journey

Key facts

• Hannah Altman's exhibition 'Ground Glass' opens June 21, 2026, at House 88 in Oświęcim, Poland.
• The exhibition honors Lore Sternfeld, a Jewish lens mechanic deported on January 29, 1943, and murdered at Auschwitz.
• Sternfeld worked for Astro-Berlin, whose lenses were used in Nazi propaganda films by Leni Riefenstahl.
• The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) acquired vintage Pan-Tachar lenses made by Astro-Berlin during Sternfeld's time.
• Focus Canning restored and refurbished the lenses, fitting them onto a Leica digital camera.
• Altman used the lenses to photograph Sternfeld's Berlin apartment, deportation train route, Auschwitz forest, and Rudolf Höss's home.
• The exhibition features 18 photographs, mostly black-and-white, with restrained color tones.
• Visitors can handle the vintage lenses and create their own photographs.