Below are 12 concentration pieces as part of the AP Art Exam in high school. When I heard that I needed to do an 12 pieces on a concentrated subject for AP 2-D art, I took the word concentration into my own hands. My concentration is taking places that I saw and visited during my Holocaust Study Tour (such as concentration camps) and creating them on paper. Then I add what are supposed to be ghost looking figures to show the story behind the place I'm replicating. The medium for all pieces is oil pastel. The pieces signify reactions to a Holocaust Study Tour that I attended in 2014 to Germany, Czech Republic, and Poland. The other pieces are other works from the breathe part of the exam and additional artwork. Part of the additional artwork is a model and furniture designs for admission into Fashion Institute of Technology.
Night of Broken Glass- While in Czech Republic on a two week Holocaust Study experience I was given the opportunity to visit the Pinkas Synagogue. Inside there are names of all the Jews of Prague affected by the Holocaust they have accounted for. Right outside of that synagogue was one of the most famous Jewish cemeteries “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” which is shown in my drawing. After walking through the designated path around the cemetery we encountered another small synagogue that was restored after kristallnacht “The night of broken glass.” The synagogue in my drawing displays how the synagogue would have looked like on kristallnacht with the famous Jewish cemetery in front of it. I really tried to include the dark emotions felt when learning about the Holocaust and how the Jews were disrespected.
*This piece won honorable mention in the Northern NJ Regional Scholastics Art and Writing Awards.*
Rosenstrasse Memorial- in 1943 brave Christian women peacefully fought for their Jewish husbands and children to be set free after being arrested when the Nazis wanted Berlin to be “Jew-free.” The women protested outside of the former Jewish Community Center where the men and boys were held in basement, even though there were armed Nazi soldiers telling them to stop. To prevent a public relations issues and further protesting, they released the husbands and children. In my piece I show a section of the memorial built in the honor of the Christian women and their reunitement with their families.
Entrance to Auschwitz.
Hidden Jewish child cemetery in Berlin,Germany.
Crematorium in Terezin Concentration Camp in Czech Republic. Terezin was not a death camp but due to the amount of deaths the camp was forced to make a crematorium. The camp was used for a lot of propaganda during the Holocaust.
Labor Camp of Plaszow- the memorial shown in my artwork belonged to the Plaszow Labor Camp and stands on top of a hill facing a main highway in Poland now. Behind the huge sculpted memorial lies a valley where many Jews were shot. The Krakow ghetto was 5 miles away from the the prisoner built camp. Nazis ordered a line up for adults to start marching as the children were lined up and taken away to be shot to death. Two days later some parents found out when they were forced to sort the children’s clothing, including some of their own children (which I had portrayed the ghost to be doing so in my piece).
Wannsee Conference- the building shown in the piece, the Wannsee house, is the villa where Nazi bureaucrats had decided on the Final Solution. The Final Solution is when they decided to exterminate the Jews. The villa itself is beautiful and lies right on the edge of a lake with a significant view, which is ironic being the events that have taken place there. I tried to replicate a Nazi official walking proudly out of the villa giving an unsettling feeling.
Wall Of Death- Auschwitz is not an easy place to attend. From the minute you enter to the minute you leave its so uncomfortable to be in a place where thousands are killed. After passing through a few buildings within the museum our tour guide took us to the Wall Of Death. From when I first entered that section, I first noticed the amount of flowers and rocks placed in front of the wall to honor the victims deaths. Although the one we saw was just a replica, just the fact we were in the exact spot where many were gunned down was horrifying. As a young Jewish girl with Polish background, every place I went on the tour I would imagine myself in the those situations back when the Holocaust took place. That could have been me. In fact it probably was my ancestors. Even when creating this piece I had countless amount of chills and even had to stop at points because I would become too emotional and cry. The ghostly figures in this piece are all facing the opposite way from the wall except for the officer preparing to gun down his next victim. They do not face the wall because its disturbing to believe people could just stand there and watch innocent people die. To avoid working on the ghosts that broke my heart, I focused a lot on the architectural displacement.
Rabka Zdroj- The small town of Rabka Zdroj, Poland was a Jewish community before the Gestapo took over part of the convent and used it for interrogation training during the war. Their practice came from torturing Jews to death and throwing their dead bodies behind the convent building. A group of heroic nuns risked their lives to reposition the Jew’s bodies up the hill to a remotely wooded area and attempted to give them a proper Jewish burial given the circumstances. In my piece I try to make it obvious that the nuns had buried the Jews religiously by showing a shovel and Jewish prayer books.
Memorial to the First Deportation to Auschwitz- a piece of the wall from the Tarnow ghetto, which had the first deportation to Auschwitz, is on display as memorial with a steel sculpture of Jews deporting attached to the wall. Tarnow had the highest Jewish population share in the historic region of Galicia, Poland. During the German occupation almost all Jews from Tarnow were murdered. I tried to portray the ghosts deporting just as the sculpture, making them carry their possessions and walk with confused emotions, that were to be stripped of them when they arrived at Auschwitz
Terezin- Inspired by the concentration camp in Czech Republic, Terezin. The place is done as I saw it in person and the ghosts represent the prisoners lining up to begin work after being given uniforms as they enter the camp. It was the transition in the tour from knowledge of the forming of the Nazi regime to the terrifying actions. We learned so many horrible crimes against humanity that have taken place in that very spot, and yet ironically the setting was beautiful. There was not a cloud in the sky that day, and the reflection of the sunlight made the green in the grass on the roof pop enticing my eyes. How could such an evil place be so beautiful? I tried to display the confusion in my art with a light background and having ghosts of the prisoner who would have actually been there.
The Wolf Family- Previous to the Holocaust Study Tour, I had read the diary of Otto Wolf in the book Salvaged Pages. While in Trische, Czech Republic a walking trail memorial had been created recently in the Wolf family and the towns honor after the high schools and donors involved in the tour donated two designated memorials years prior. The first memorial was placed in front of the Wolf family’s hiding spot in the forest and the second was in the middle of the town to honor the citizens who kept the Wolf family hidden. I remember how pretty and bright it was in the forest around the holes of where the family’s hiding spot was. The background that the entire town keeping this one family a secret is inspiring. The beauty in the forest reminded me that there was still good within the evil of the Holocaust. In my piece I really tried to portray the beauty and used actual photographs of Otto and his sister to reference when pasteling their ghosts. I also included the one memorial that was donated by the high school to really emphasize the importance of that place. It is important to cause awareness not only for the issues but to make aware that there are people fighting against the evil.
