“I am firmly convinced that listening to a witness means fitting in a witness. “
Holocaust Survivor and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel’s quote is prominently displayed on a wall at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles and is featured in 10 portraits of Holocaust survivors painted through 17-year-old Sherman Oaks, California student Sophia Soll. , whose virtual display, “Becoming a Witness,” debuted last month in front of a virtual crowd.
“People say it’s pretty scary or disturbing to see those colors in human anatomy, and I say that’s what makes my paintings so human,” Soll said. “I focus and exaggerate those human qualities. “
In fact, the portraits are eye-catching, composed of warm green and violet acrylics, colors, Soll notes, usually little used for the skin. A bright yellow halo sprouts from each of their heads.
Soll first captivated through the humanity of these Holocaust survivors when he met them at a lunch offered through the MoTivating Teen Volunteer program of the Museum of Tolerance, a one-year program in which teenagers pay attention to the testimonies of Holocaust survivors and are informed about the museum’s characteristics. archives, and paintings on projects to publicize tolerance within their own communities.
Before attending last year’s lunch, Soll came through black-and-white photographs of the survivors online, and recalled a sense of coldness and disconnection.
“But it was precisely the opposite,” Soll said, “After gathering them together and hearing their stories, she felt a sense of warmth and humanity that the photographs did not convey to her.
“They were so open and willing to share their percentage stories, and they were willing to make human connections,” he said. “It made me cry for that, because I was so that those other people, who have suffered so much trauma, you would think they would be bloodless and bitter, but it was precisely the opposite.
A Story Soll found the testimony of Walter Bodlander, whose circle of relatives fled Nazi Germany after the Kristallnacht, or “The Night of Broken Crystals,” in which Nazi paramilitary forces and German citizens destroyed Jewish storefronts, houses, hospitals and schools in November. 9-10 in 1938, when the German government set aside.
Bodlander first tried to enlist in the French army, but was rejected and even threatened with internment because he was German.
However, he won a visa for the United States in 1941 and joined the army after the Pearl Harbor attacks, when Congress passed a law allowing non-citizen citizens to volunteer. Bodlander served as an intelligence officer and was one of the first men to land at Utah Beach in Normandy on D-Day.
“Not only did he survive, but he returned to fight them; it’s courage, strength, that’s all, ” said Soll. Everything she expects documents her portrait.
Bodlander died at the age of one hundred in February, before Soll finished his portrait.
“They never gave him to see him. I’m very upset,” he said. His death also reinforced a commonly discussed sense of urgency in Holocaust education to document the lives of survivors as the population continues to age.
This urgency also resonates with the paintings of Elana Samuels, Director of Volunteer Services at the Museum of Tolerance and author of the MOTivating Teen program. She is especially proud of how teens in her program build intergenerational relationships with survivors through meetings and interactions with survivors. .
“To meet these other amazing people as human beings, they must not only be informed about history, but also about history,” Samuels said.
“The duality of remembering the afterlife and focusing on what it offers, but hoping to build a longer long-term term, is a very motivating thing for me,” he added.
Reflecting on Soll’s portraits, Samuels said, “She assumes this duty and commitment to keep those stories, honor the survivors, and be a witness for the future. “
Gabriella Karin is a Holocaust survivor who met Soll through her participation in the Museum of Tolerance. Karin herself is an artist, the medium of sculpture to form the Holocaust as she experienced it.
Originally from Bratislava, Slovakia, Karin hid among nuns in a convent at the age of 11 before hiding absolutely in an apartment with her parents and five others.
“For nine months I may not communicate and not move,” Karin said. “I’m sitting in a chair and all I can do is read. “
She read more complex documents because the young man hiding her circle of relatives did not need locals to suspect that he was passing books to a child.
As a child, she immersed herself in complex history books and Tolstoy, and when Slovakia launched in 1945, Karin returned to school and skipped a year. He moved to Israel for 11 years before moving to Los Angeles, and had a long career as a student. fashion designer before retiring.
At that time, he returned to sculpture school and began to stick to a defamation case in London that made headlines: when David Irving sued American professor Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books in 2000 for identifying him as a Holocaust denier.
“I’m very angry. We are still alive and someone dares to say that this has never happened,” Karin said, so she began making sculptures about the Holocaust: a nun who hid young Jews in her dress and a circle of relatives. with fallen leaves, among others.
“I feel like I can teach people, and with that, they may sense what happened,” said Karin, who will turn 90 next month. “It’s a very complicated subject, and it’s hard to perceive that something like this that human being can do to another. “
When he first saw Soll’s portrait of her, he was shocked. People had painted it before, but she says she never identified herself in the portraits.
“She was the first one I recognized, and she’s amazing,” Karin said.
He said Soll’s exhibition reinforces the fact that other genuine people are those stories of tragedy and survival.
“It shows more of a feeling than a reflection,” he said. A photograph is not displayed inside. Painting, if done right, yes. And that’s what she does. “
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