This story took place in
the Radom forced labor camp. One
morning Dvora was ill so stayed
behind at the apartment while
her mother went in to work at
the kitchen. Suddenly she heard
the sound of boots on the
pavement, soldiers! She
desperately looked for a place
to hide. The practice was to do
an unannounced sweep of the
buildings and to drag out those
who were not at work. They would
line them up and shoot every
tenth one in front of the
others. Not to hide meant a 10%
chance of death and a 100%
chance of terror.
She looked around in vain until
she noticed a small space under
the stairs. There was a small
door, maybe two feet wide. I
used a bit of artistic license
and made it a hole with a more
interesting form. It was too
small for a person, but in
desperation she slid her feet
inside, then her hips and lastly
she ducked her head and
shoulders within. Still in
her nightclothes she crouched in
fearful silence. Above her head
she heard the soldiers' boots
resounding on the steps as they
ran up the stairs. Then shots of
the unfortunate 10% soon
followed.
Her mother returned from work
fearful that her daughter was no
longer alive. She too had heard
the shots and knew what they
meant.
After I painted this, Dvora told
me that she had sat in a fetal
position with her arms wrapped
around her legs, exactly as I
imagined and painted her.
It reminds me of either the form
of an Egyptian sarcophagus or a
fetus, appropriate for she was
poised between life and death.
When
Dvora and her mother arrived at
Auschwitz their hair was shorn
and their clothes left at the
door. As they stood naked
before Dr Mengele, he pointed
their fate with his crop. Those
who would live another day were
sent to one side, the others to
the gas chamber. The older women
were usually sent to their death
and their daughters cried out to
join them. As they approached
the immaculately dressed
Mengele, her mother thrust Dvora
ahead of her. They both passed
his scrutiny, unusual for her
mother who was over 40, an age
considered old at that time and
place. "Why did you do that?"
Dvora asked. "I didn't want you
to try to follow me" her mother
replied.
Dvora asked me if I could do
tears as her vivid recollection
was of the daughters crying for
their mothers. I let drips
tunnel through the paint like
tears with three daughters in
the upper left. She described
the uniformed Dr. Mengele with
white gloves, a long coat, boots
and a riding crop.
This
painting was in the last
Artists' Lab and more
information is available on that
page.
The story is of a
death march from Auschwitz
towards Bergen-Belsen, a march
that she did with her mother who
was by her side throughout the
war and in the camps.
They were given three things at
the outset, a blanket, a can
with a picture of a chicken and
bread. The cans soon
littered the road as they had no
way to open them. The
blankets hung like nooses around
their necks. If you sat down to
rest, you received a bullet in
the back of the head. After two
ten hour days of walking, Dvora
asked a guard when they were
going to stop. He motioned
to a village ahead. When
they continued forward after
reaching the village, Dvora
exhausted, prepared to sit down
despite the consequence.
Her mother tried to dissuade her
unsuccessfully and finally
responded, "All right, we'll sit
down together" to which Dvora
replied, "Not you!!"
In that moment came the
realization that their lives
were bound together and they
continued on.
The setting is Bergen Belsen
where piles of corpses
mount, building from
starvation and typhus. Dvora
became ill. She recovered,
but was still quite weak.
One day she fell and was
unable to rise. Her mother
returned from work and found
her missing. She had been
taken to the infirmary which
was but a way station to the
pile of corpses. Two people
lay in each bed, 30 inches
across.
Throughout the war her
mother had a pair of
burgundy shoes, each with
the heel hollowed out.
Within each heel was a small
diamond ring. Through
Auschwitz, two death marches
and Bergen Belsen they had
held this property, often
weighing if this was the
time to exchange it for a
loaf of bread. Now her
mother pried off one heel
and extracted the ring. She
strode to the infirmary and
held it out to the Polish
woman who was in charge.
"Give me my daughter!" she
said.
How to paint this? I
pictured the Polish woman
with an attitude of
resistance blocking the way,
Dvora's mother with a firm
line to her mouth forcefully
thrusting her palm forward,
the ring cupped
within. I wanted to
show the shoes, but that
would compress the figures.
. The fact that she had
walked in those shoes
through two death marches
without accessing the rings
felt like an important part
of the story.
Ultimately I put a figure in
with the red shoes as
background. The Polish
woman's arm blocks the way.
Behind it I added the figure
of Dvora to highlight the
idea of an exchange.
Dvora
noted that during
the Holocaust,
darkness often
represented safety
whereas light meant
exposure and
danger. She
recalled the smoke
from the crematorium
and how it spit fire
into the night sky,
tingeing it red..By
contrast she
recalled a different
moment when they
arrived at a
camp. It was
the eve of her 21st
birthday when they
stepped from a
boxcar into a pine
forest. She
recalled the
midnight blue of the
night sky studded
with stars and the
trees dusted with
snow. That
vision of beauty
represented hope in
a world which
offered little.
This painting was
exhibited as part of
the Jewish Artists'
Lab exhibition on
the theme of light
and more information
can be found on that
page.
Dvora recalled the day of
liberation. She had recently
recovered from a bout of typus
and was seated on the steps of
her barracks. Her mother stood
behind her and to the side was a
pile of bodies. It was a
sunny bright day and she
shielded her eyes from the
light. Suddenly she heard
Polish being spoken and focused
on a tank that had entered the
camp. A soldier held a
megaphone to his mouth as he
announced that they were free.
This was one of the most
difficult paintings to do
because of the pile of bodies
which Dvora insisted I had to
include.
