62METROPOLITAN
The knuckleduster on his
left hand spells out the leg-
end Mamika – ‘my little grand-
mother’ in Hungarian – but this
rather unusual piece of hardware
isn’t Sacha Goldberger’s most out-
landish tribute tohis beloved older
relation, 97-year-oldFrederika.No,
not by a long shot. Over thepast 10
years, theFrenchphotographerhas
turned his extraordinary grand-
mother - a Budapest-born baron-
ess who saved 10 people from the
Nazis during WWII, and married
and divorced four times – into an
unlikelyminor celebrityvia several
seriesofoddballportraits. It’sacol-
laboration they embarkedonwhen
vivacious former textile consultant
Frederikafoundretirementabitofa
bore.Thecrèmede lacrèmeof these
pictureshavenowbeencollected in
abook:
Mamika,TheBest
.
Still handsome, if a little forget-
ful, at nearly 100, Frederika lis-
tens intently as her 47-year-old
grandson recounts theirmosthair-
brained photographic adventures.
Like the time she rodeher exercise
bikeonParis’PlacedeL’Étoile,next
to the Arc de Triomphe, without
permission: ‘The police just let us
ANOTHER TIME
SHE RODE HER
EXERCISE BIKE
ON PARIS’
PLACE DE
L’ÉTOILE; ‘THE
POLICE JUST
LET US GET
ON WITH IT’
EN
get onwith it, and she kept saying
“Who ever’s going to believe that I
actuallydid this?”’
For Sacha, the main appeal of
the
Mamika
snaps lies in their fun,
cartoon-like quality – including an
entire series as an unconventional
superhero,SuperMamika– instark
contrast with traditional images
of seniors, which are often sad
and in black and white. He cred-
its his absurdist streak of Central
European Jewish humour with
allowinghim to tackleserioussub-
jects likeAlzheimer’sby, for exam-
ple, showing Mamika carefully
filinghernailswithapickle.
So has the family always used
humour to stave off the bad stuff?
‘Of course.All theHolocaust survi-
vors were faced with two choices:
fall into a deep funk, or have a
giggle and keep moving forward.
Mygrandmotherhasalways forged
ahead. I’ve never heard her com-
plain. Ever.’ ‘We are positive peo-
ple,’Frederikaaddsfirmly.
To date, there are more than
10,000
Mamika
pictures, but the
photographer shrugs off any sug-
gestion that hemayhave exploited
his ageing muse. And having met
Frederika, it’shard to imagine that
she’dbeanyone’smarionette. She’s
as tough as that knuckleduster,
and feistywith it.Midway through
