The photography of my mother

I do not know what fascinated me at first, the dark disheartened look, the small hair lock in her neck or the star, the hairstyle and clothes of another time.
Who is this young woman who already seems to carry in her all the horror to come ?
Why this photo, on what occasion was it taken, what for ?
As log as I remember, this haunting portrait was among pictures that had not found their places in albums.
The whole bunch thrown in a large cardboard box without lid, stowed at the bottom of the cabinet in the family living room.
Old sepias of close relatives dressed in their finest attire posing in highly sought-after scenes, rubbed shoulders with other faces from times unknown of my.
Whenever I searched in this shambles, the dark look of my mother reappeared.
I took possession of this cliché the day my father died.
Fourteen years after my mother's death, I finally dare affronting this tragic face.
I made many portraits of my mother, but it's this image that to me resembles the most or at least to what I guess was her real personality.
On all the other photos, she usually appears mostly smiling, and a little borrowed.
Her life was not a light waltz.
In vain I asked her for details about the events that marked her existence.
Her answers were always rather vague and enigmatic in my opinion, or perhaps, I did not want to hear…
I will never know for what purpose the little cliché was realized and why she posed with the star sewn on her clothes.
My mother was denounced. Arrested by the Gestapo and deported to Auschwitz one year before the end of the war.
Many years later, I wanted to pay tribute to the woman she was.
On her deathbed she told me not to regret going away. My mother died of a long illness...