Gallery Page 2

Please click to enlarge
1993
Ink with colored pencil
25 3/4 H x 36 3/4 W
65.4 x 93.3 cm
Framed

Please click to enlarge
The photo used for the drawing - note the third frame on the right. The three photos must have been taken seconds apart

WOMAN FIGHTER AFTER CAPTURE, DURING THE WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING
Kampferin nach Gefangennahme wahrend des Aufstands im Warschauer Ghetto
Kobieta walczaca w Powstaniu w
Getcie Warszawskim po zlapaniu

UWG Art No. 11

The triple-image photo was taken by a Nazi soldier during the time of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, each frame probably taken seconds apart. These Jewish young men and women, children and teens among them, were non-professionally trained. Armed with a small number of handguns, a few rifles and 'Molotov cocktails' (gasoline-in-bottle bombs), they were no match for the German's machine guns, planes, tanks and flamethrowers.

Yet it took longer for the Germans to defeat 600 - 800 Jewish civilian fighters then it took the professional German Army to defeat the national armies of several European countries at the beginning of World War II.

In controlling their own deaths and killing some of their Nazi murderers, these Jewish Holocaust victims were able to die with dignity. To be able to do that was of monumental importance and meaning to them. The Nazi's had systematically stripped dignity as human beings from so many of their victims in their brutal fascist campaign of racial cleansing.

Please click to enlarge
1993
Ink
27 1/2" H x 33 3/8" W
65.4 x 84.4 cm

Framed through the support of the Museum of History & Industry, Seattle

RECHT UND GESETZ
CHILD ON SIDEWALK
Recht und Gesetz - Kind auf dem Burgersteig
Recht und Gesetz - Dziecko na chodniku

UWG Art No.12

Drawn from a Warsaw Ghetto photo. Recht und Gesetz is German for Law & Order. In the early 1930's the Nazi's used this term as a rallying cry, offering regimentation and stability to Germans troubled by labor strikes, huge political demonstrations, unemployment and inflation.

The German Third Reich economic success that Austrian right wing politician Jorg Haider has spoken of so fondly in recent years included massive use of unlimited numbers of slaves. Worked to deaths in factories, Jewish ghettos and concentration camps, they offered German industrialists unlimited free labor and thousands of Nazi's decades worthy of money in the post-war years, as the genocide was not only about murdering the victims but about making massive profits. Few of the murders were prosecuted; fewer still served time in prison.

Recht und Gesetz has a farcial tone to it when we think of how the German Nazis treated children, such as the child in this drawing.

There is not the slightest question that the persecution of the Jews has reached its awful climax in a campaign to wipe them out of Europe. If the Christian community does not support to the utmost the belated proposal worked out to rescue the Jews remaining in Europe from the fate prepared for them, we have accepted the Hitlerian thesis and forever compromised the principles for which we are pouring out blood and wealth. - March 3,1943 New York Times column by Anne O'Hare McCormick, foreign affairs correspondent and member *of the* Times editorial board.**
Please click to enlarge 1992 Ink, colored pencil on buff etching paper. 30" H x 22" W 76.2 x 55.8 cm Two additional drawing sheets for left & right wings are planned, each the same size as the drawing (pictured below) Please click to enlarge	SH'MA UWG Art No. 13 Drawn & painted in May 1992 after I received word that Israel Bernbaum had passed on. The drawing depicts a religious Jewish man in the Warsaw Ghetto with his tallit (prayer shawl), surrounded by imagery from a Polish Jewish gravestone seen in the book Time of Stones. In the foreground are candlestick holders; note the similarity to the man in "Shoah Dreams" with a green striped "tallit" (prayer shawl). Warsaw Ghetto photo (above left) and Polish gravestone (below) used as source material for the drawing. Please click to enlarge

Please click to enlarge 1993 India ink on white paper 39" H x 26 3/4" W 99 x 67.9 cm Framed	CHILD WITH SOUP PLATE Kind mit Suppenteller Dziecko z talerem na zupe UWG Art No. 14 The photo this was drawn from shows a child standing behind the one depicted. The child may have been in a ghetto soup kitchen or orphanage. Drawn from a photo in the book The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising - 45th Anniversary (Interpress, Warsaw, 1988)

Please click to enlarge
1993
Ink
28 3/4" H x 36 3/4" W
73 x 93.3 cm
Framed

CHILDREN PLAYING ON WARSAW GHETTO STREET
Spielende Kinder auf der Strasse des Warschauer Ghetto
Dzieci bawiace sie na ulicy Warszawskiego Getta

UWG Art No.15

Drawn from a photo probably taken in 1941. The first drawing where I sought to give movement to the wings.


Please click to enlarge 1994 Ink with gouache 31 3/4" Ht x 31 3/4" W 80.6 x 80.6 cm Framed	GIRL / WOMAN STANDING NEXT TO BOARDED UP SHOP WINDOW WITH A CHILD'S DRAWING OF A CHILD DRAWN ON IT Stehendes Madchen/Stehende Frau neben zugeriegeltem Fenster mit einer Zeichnung eines Kindes mit einem Kind darauf gezeichnet Dziewczyna / kobieta stojaca wytryny sklepowej zabitej deskami, na ktorej widnieje rysunek dziecka namalowany przez dziecko UWG Art No. 16 In the Warsaw Ghetto photo I drew this from, there was a girl standing next to this boarded up store front...the drawing of a child may've been done in crayon or chalk; that image mesmerized me - imagine, a child in the Warsaw Ghetto drawing a picture of a kid on a wall there! Wow! I had great trouble drawing the child on the left and she ended up looking decades older by the time I finished it....so she ended up with a metamorphic 'growth' from childhood to adulthood. While she would've have experienced things no child should have to go through, in real life adulthood was denied her, as children & the elderly were the first to be executed at the death camps

Please click to enlarge 1994 Ink, watercolor & gouache 46" H x 29" W 116.8 x 88.9 cm Framed through the support of the Wing Luke Asian Museum, Seattle	TWO FIGHTERS AFTER CAPTURE, DURING THE WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING (THE HATIKVAH DRAWING) Zwei Widerstandskampfer nach Gefangennahme wahrend des Aufstands im Warschauer Ghetto (Die Hatikvah Zeichnung) Dziewczyna / kobieta stojaca wytryny sklepowej zabitej deskami, na ktorej widnieje rysunek dziecka namalowany przez dziecko UWG Art No. 17 In the photo this was drawn from there were four Jewish fighters...two of whom are seen in the drawing. They were executed by the Nazi soldiers shortly after their capture, according to accounts of the Uprising. The idea for the painted border design came from an illuminated Jewish manuscript in the book Jewish Art and Civilization (edited by G. Wigoder) which had Hebrew letters around the border. In my drawing I chose the Hebrew language lyrices for the Israeli national anthem Hatikvah, offering a symbolic ashes to rebirth for viewers of the art. The initials ZOB seen in the lower left stand for the initials of the umbrella organization of the various Jewish political groups and organizations that joined together to kill the Nazi murderers during the Uprising. It means Zydowska Organiczja Zoborowska (Jewish Fighters Organization).

Please click to enlarge Begun 1993-94 (IN PROGRESS - JUNE 2001) Ink, watercolor, gouache, brick dust, wax, waxed boat twine Currently 37" H x 26 1/2" W 93.9 x 67.3 cm I plan to increase the paper size and sky area in the background (unframed)	CHILD WITH WAXED WINGS Kind mit Wachsflugeln Dziecko z woskowymi skzydlami UWG Art No. 18 Drawn from a Warsaw Ghetto photo of a group of children standing by a front stoop. Please click to enlarge Above, an undated drawing, probably from the Renaissance time period, seen in the 1995 children's book Strange and Wonderful Aircraft by Harvey Weiss (Houghton Mifflin, Boston) which I found at the public library in late February 2002. I was immediately struck by the similarity to my drawings....

Please click to enlarge Drawn from a Warsaw Ghetto photo. 1993 Ink with colored pencil 34 1/2" H x 24 1/2" W 87.6 x 62.2 cm Framed through the support of the Museum of History & Industry, Seattle	FATHER WITH DAUGHTER Vater mit Tochter Ojciec z corka UWG Art No. 19 J ai reve tellement fort de toi I have dreamed so strongly of you - ....a poem by Robert Desnos J ai reve tellement fort de toi J ai tellement marché, tellement parlé, Tellement aime ton ombre Qu'il ne me reste plus rien de toi, Il me reste d'etre l ombre parmi les ombres D etre cent fois plus ombre que l'ombre D etre l'ombre qui viendra et reviendra dans ta vie ensoleillee I have dreamed so strongly of you I have walked so much, talked so much So much I have loved your shadow That there now remains for me nothing more of you, It remains with me to be a shadow among shadows To be a hundred times darker than the darkness To be the shadow that will come and come again into your sun blessed life. Reprinted from The Selected Poems of Robert Desnos, translated by Carolyn Forche & William Kulik, Ecco Press, NY 1991. Desnos, a French poet; novelist; film, art, record & literary reviewer; songwriter; radio playwright and writer of 3,000 commercials, was born in 1900. He died of typhus at Terezin in 1945, after liberation, having previously been imprisoned at Auschwitz, Buchenwald and other Nazi camps for his anti-Nazi Resistance activities. (Desnos is portrayed in UWG No. 54)

Please click to enlarge 1993 Ink with touches of white & gray penciling and gouache on beige etching paper 46 H x 35 W inches 116.8 x 88.9 cm Tinto con toques de pinceladas Blanco y gris sobre paper Framed through the support of the Museum of History & Industry, Seattle Enmarcado con el soperte del Museo de Historia y Industria, Seattle The wheel seen at the left, below Rubinsztajn's right wing (seen on viewers left) is the wheel of a pedicab (like a rickshaw). The wheel was drawn in to give Rubinsztajn a spatial relationship to the street. In the photo are several men standing on the sidewalk near the pedicab.	RUBINSZTAJN RUBINSZTAN, EL MIMO DEL GHETTO DE WARSOVIA UWG Art No. 20 Rubinsztajn was a lets, Yiddish for street performer, in the Warsaw Ghetto. Yiddish was the language spoken by millions of Jewish people in eastern and central Europe before the Holocaust. His name is pronounced Rubinstein. Rubinsztajn was seen by witnesses as he went to the Umschlagplatz exclaiming his famous slogan Ale glajch! (All are equal!). The umschlagplatz is where the train tracks were at one side of the ghetto - from which Jews were deported to death or concentration camps in Poland. Most of Warsaw's Jews were murdered at the Treblinka death camp in Poland. In the ghetto, no one knew his first name. According to the staff at YIVO Institute and Library in New York, where the artist found the photo of Rubinstzajn used to create the drawing, Rubinsztajn hailed from a Jewish shtetl (a Jewish village) in the province around Warsaw. He lost his reason after he had been viciously beaten during a Gestapo interrogation. The Gestapo was the German Nazi Secret Police. He was murdered at the Treblinka death camp in the summer of 1942. Drawn from a photo courtesy of the YIVO Research Institute and Library, New York.

Please click to enlarge 1994 Ink, gouache, stitching with waxed twine and old book cover with stitching 31" H x 37 1/8" W 78.7 x 93.9 Framed, with assistance from the Wing Luke Asian Museum, Seattle The Polish word POSTOJ is seen in a photo by the late Jewish photographer Roman Vishniac from his book of photos A Vanished World (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, NY '86). During the 1930's Vishniac traveled through eastern and central Europe, including Germany, where he photographed Jewish life in the countryside and city alike, at great risk. A photographer could easily be considered a spy, and Vishniac took many photographs with a hidden camera. A 1937 photo by Vishniac shows the licenses and papers of the artel of Jewish porters in Warsaw. Postoj in Polish means station...in the foreground of the photo (plate 28 in the paperback edition of the book) is seen a bearded man's license, which is stamped POSTOJ No. 81. His porter station then was No. 81. Porters hauled goods, some by backbreaking labor with ropes connected to a cart slung to the back and shoulders; better off porters had a horse and cart.	LEBENSRAUM - THE ESKIMO ICE CREAM DRAWING Lebensraum - Die Eskimo- Eis-Zeichnung Lebensraum - Rysunek lodow Eskimo UWG Art No. 21 The child victims portrayed in this mixed media piece were drawn from Warsaw Ghetto photos - the child at viewers left from a photo by Nazi soldier Heinz Jost [see also UWG Drawings No. 7, 9, and 33]. Josts caption for the photo stated: On the sidewalk in a side street I saw this tiny child who could no longer pull himself upright. The passers-by didn't stop. There were too many children like this one. Lody means ice cream in Polish. Store signs seen in Warsaw Ghetto photos pre-date the Nazi occupation and the sealing in of the ghetto. I was struck, living in Seattle ~ with my home city's close proximity to Alaska and Native American culture, by the incongruity of a store sign in the Warsaw Ghetto for Eskimo brand ice-cream. Lebensraum was the German Nazi term for their justification to seize neighboring lands at the onset of World War II. It means Living Room. Germany needed Living Room for their imperial conquests and an expanded Germany.

Please click to enlarge 1994 Ink, watercolor & melted candle wax 8" H x 21 1/8" W paper size 20.3 x 53.3 cm Framed with hand-painted wood frame. In February 2007 the drawing and its frame were mounted on a long piece of driftwood the artist found on the rocks by Myrtle Edwards Park along the Seattle waterfront downtown. A photo will be forthcoming.	CHANA BRONSTEIN - MANICURE SHOP SIGN Das Manikuregeschaftsschild von Chana Bronstein Szyld salonu kosmetycznego Chany Bronstein UWG Art No. 22 Drawn from a Warsaw Ghetto photo. I haven't researched what happened to her. If you can read Hebrew, the letters, read from right to left, phonetically spell out man-i-cure & Chan-ah Bron-stein.

Please click to enlarge 1994 Framed in three separate frames. Please click images to enlarge Brooke Rolston (left), an enthusiastic supporter of Holocaust Education Through Art & the Under the Wings...series, is an ordained American Baptist minister and formerly was Co-Director of Covenant House, Campus Christian Ministry at the University of Washington, Seattle.	MAN WITH TALLIS Mann mit Tallis Mezczyzna z Tallisem UWG Art No. 23 Tallis is Yiddish for prayer shawl. In Hebrew it is tallit, pronounced as TAHL-eet. This anonymous victim was photographed in the Warsaw Ghetto. In the photo he wears the clothes of a poor man, with a large hat. The prayer shawl was added by the artist and is not seen in the photo. Size: Three separate panels (a triptych): Each wing is drawn with ink on paper, 43" H x 52" W 109.2 x 132 cm Center panel (the man): Ink, watercolor, gouache, gold ink: 43" H x 33" W 100.2 x 83.8 cm Left, the artist with the late ornithology Collections Assistant Carol Spaw at the Burke Museum, 1994. Right, below: installation shot, probably at the Broadway Market exhibit, 1996. Please click images to enlarge

Please click to enlarge 1994 Ink, watercolor, colored pencil, collaged on fabric, stitching with thread 25 5/8" H x 31 3/8" W 65.4 x 78.7 cm (unframed)	CHILD WITH QUILT Kind mit Flickendecke Dziecko z kocem UWG Art No. 24 This mixed media drawing portrays a nameless and anonymous child victim, a boy, drawn from a Warsaw Ghetto photo. The quilt's 'leaping ponies or dogs' are meant to evoke an unfufilled dream, or, however you'd like to think of it.... Drawn from a photo in the chapter titled Children in The Warsaw Ghetto - 45th Anniversary of the Uprising

Please click to enlarge 1994 Ink 38 3/8" H x 28 38" W\| 96.5 x 71.1 cm Framed	SMILING MAN WITH SINGLE WING Lächelnder Mann mit einzelnem Flugel Usmiechniety mezczyzna z jednym skzydlem UWG Art No. 25 Drawn from a Warsaw Ghetto photo. Two questions to think about: Why did the artist draw him with one wing? Why was he drawn without his eyes depicted?
"Once a person has died, it doesn't matter if the space that separates us from knowing them is is 12 years or 12 minutes, a second or a century. The closest we can get is to know those, like my grandfather, who were close to them." - article by Daniel Mendelsohn, "Before the Holocaust Fades Away - Who Betrayed the Jagers of Bolechow? A Personal and Philosophical search," published in The New York Times Magazine, July 14, 2002.
Please click to enlarge 1994 Blue ink on pale blue etching paper 37" H x 29" W 93.9 x 73.6 cm Framed Giettels wings are from an arctic tern	GIETTEL LASKI UWG Art No. 26 Born in 1937 or 1938 and raised in a non-Jewish section of Warsaw, Giettel and her family were forced into the Warsaw Ghetto by the Nazi's. Giettel and other family members still alive in the spring of 1943 were captured by German forces (or their Lithuanian SS or Polish Police accomplices), this was during the time now known as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Giettel was deported in train cars to the Majdanek death camp with her mother, grandfather, her aunt Chana, and several other family members. The grandfather (Chana's father), a religious man, was shot on arrival. Giettel was murdered in the gas chambers and Giettel's (one of Chana's sisters) mother joined the line for the gas chambers soon after, having lost the will to live. Chana was sent from slave labor in Majdanek to the Auschwitz concentration and death camp where she found, incredibly, another sister who had been seized by the Germans in 1942. Miraculously, both of these sisters were alive when the Germans retreated from Auschwitz to Germany, taking thousands of inmates on a death march with them. They both managed to survive the death march and after a year as slaves laborers at a factory in Malchow, Germany, they were liberated in 1945. Chana had an aunt who had left Warsaw for the U.S. in in the late 1920's, and the two sisters were given visas to the U.S. arranged by the International Red Cross in Sweden. Their aunt, now deceased, had corresponded with the family back in Warsaw until the war, which is why Chana has family photos, all taken prior to 1939. Giettel was probably a year old in the photo that Segan used for the drawing. Chana's husband, who passed away several years ago, was a Jewish partisan who fought the Nazi's in the forests and countryside of Poland and Ukraine.

Top \| See Section Three

INTERNATIONAL SHOAH ART MUSEUM & HOLOCAUST/GENOCIDE EDUCATION THROUGH ART AQIVA KENNY SEGAN, ARTIST & EDUCATION DIRECTOR
PO Box 1721, Seattle, WA 98111 U.S.A. Phone: (206) 624-4154 e-mail: underwings@connectexpress.com

[ Home ] [ Up ] [ Under Wings Background ] [ About the Artist ] [ Classes ] [ Other Segan Art - Judaic ] [ Other Segan Art ] [ Links ] [ Shoah Dreams Art ]

UNDER THE WINGS OF G-D ART GALLERY Section Two UWG No. 11-26 includes art created between 1993-94