Final portraits

[Colorado Blue]

By Avner Shapira

One day in Auschwitz, Dr. Josef Mengele noticed a young Jewish woman from Czechoslovakia decorating the children's roof in her barracks with drawings of characters from Walt Disney films. Mengele was impressed by the artistic ability of the prisoner, Dina Gotliebova, and ordered her to use her brush to portray the victims of the human medical experiments that he was conducting in the camp.

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Gotliebova's paintings are on display at the "Art in Auschwitz" exhibition that opened two weeks ago in Berlin, alongside other drawings by prisoners in the death camp, which were created in the years 1940-1945. This is the first time that the works, which until now were kept in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum in Poland, are being shown in Germany. The exhibition, which is taking place in the context of the events commemorating the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, is arousing a great deal of interest. Even German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder participated in the opening ceremony. As in the case of Dina Gotliebova, some of the artists managed to save their lives by means of art. The organizers of the exhibition in Berlin say, "The artistic activity offered them an escape route with which they could work out their harsh experiences, and at the same time it was a confirmation of the fact that they were continuing to exist as human beings."

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In articles about the exhibition in the German press, it was claimed that "the paintings serve as a reminder not only of the brutality, but also of the artistic impulse in the face of death." Some of the critics emphasized the difficulty of judging the works created in the death camp by aesthetic criteria. Some pointed in particular to the work of the German Jewish artist David Friedman, who was one of the most successful artists in Berlin before World War II, but all of whose pre-war paintings were lost.

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Another artist, Alfred Kantor, said, "The works were a decisive factor in my survival. Without them, I would not have been able to bear the hard work, and they undoubtedly helped me to deny the horrors of that time. I turned myself into an observer on the sidelines, and at least for a few moments, I could divorce myself from what was happening in the camp, and thus preserve my sanity."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/584682.html

[Colorado Blue]

1. I think, these works must strike to the very core of what it

means to be "human", to hope, to create, even in the face of incredible horror.

Even in a dark age, an age of industrialized warfare and the rape of our planet, we must remember: we are creative, we have the spirit and the ability to forge a better path.

And - we must NEVER forget.

Peace.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Fortunately, art outlives politics.

[Behind the Aegis]

3. Sad.

It is good the art survives, as the time is nearing when the last of the survivors will be no more. One of the saddest chapters in human history captured in art form. Hopefully, this display will come to the US.