On This Site
Just outside Prague today there is a place of beauty and serenity where the village of Lidice once stood--before the Nazis slaughtered its inhabitants and razed it to the ground in 1942. Joel Sternfeld seeks out similar places stained by violence and haunted by tragedy in the American landscape in this provocative book that questions the problematic nature of photographic representation. The image of Rockaway Peninsula on Long Island, New York, is pretty enough to adorn a postcard; it also happens to be the site where 10 illegal Chinese immigrants drowned trying to reach the shore.