The Jewish people have been faithful residents of Prague for centuries, so World War II left a deep emotional scar in the city’s heart. Today we had the opportunity to tour the Jewish Quarters in Old Town, which included a few synagogues and a cemetery. Pinkas Synagogue, the second-oldest synagogue in Prague, was built by the influential Horowitz family in the 16th century as a place of prayer. Today its walls hold the hand-written names of nearly 80,000 Czech Jews who lost their lives at the hands of the Nazis at Terezin Camp, which we will get the chance to visit later this month.

The memorial, written in red and black ink, took up the main wall space of three entire rooms in the synagogue. Sprawling paragraphs of tiny letters rose up on all sides, boxing in each visitor and leaving him no choice but to face the gruesome story of the Holocaust. One man in particular stayed glued to his audio tour as he perused the lists, taking in the scene through both his ears and his eyes. He traveled through the space slowly, pausing often to read more of the text. It was both a challenge and a privilege photographing the faces of people as they processed the weight of the memorial while working through the gravity of it all internally myself.

It almost felt like a violation or exploitation of a sacred space to be worried about something so superficial as angles and lighting as I walked through the synagogue. Yet, I ultimately found myself remembering the good that comes from using photography as a portal to transport viewers into an intimate scene and moment. The scale of a single man against hundreds of names that once were skin and bones, just like him, conveys the sense of smallness I felt wandering through that space.