In Missing Katrice, photographer Stu McKenzie revisits one of the most haunting unsolved disappearances in modern British history. On November 28, 1981, two-year-old Katrice Lee vanished from the NAAFI supermarket at Schloss Neuhaus, West Germany, while shopping with her mother and aunt. She was never seen again. What began as a family outing became a decades-long search for answers.
The investigation quickly focused on the possibility that Katrice had drowned in the nearby River Lippe. Yet serious questions surrounded the early police and military response. The area was not properly secured, border alerts were delayed, and potential witnesses were overlooked or contacted years later. No trace of Katrice—or the bright red Wellington boots she was wearing—was ever found.
For McKenzie, this story is not distant history. He grew up in the same German community where Katrice disappeared, and the case remained part of the landscape of his childhood. In Missing Katrice, he brings that personal connection to a photographic exploration of place, memory, absence, and unresolved grief.
Rather than simply documenting a cold case, McKenzie considers how a disappearance can become embedded in a community and passed from one generation to the next. His photographs create a quiet, atmospheric space in which ordinary locations take on a disturbing significance. The familiar becomes charged with unanswered questions.
Missing Katrice is ultimately a book about more than a missing child. It is about the enduring impact of loss, the fragility of memory, and the need to keep asking questions when an investigation has failed to provide closure. McKenzie’s intimate connection to the story gives the project a rare emotional depth, making this a thoughtful and deeply affecting photography book about disappearance, memory, and the search for truth.
Stu McKenzie: Missing Katrice
Category: Photographer Monographs & Art Books
Author: Stu McKenzie
Publisher: Dewi Lewis Publishing
Publication Date:
September 2026
Print Length: 108 pages
Language: English
Price: paid
paid
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