A new exhibition features works of art by Holocaust survivors who provide a window into the world of terror they experienced during the Nazi genocide. The exhibition, “Virtues of Memory: Six Decades of Holocaust Survivors' Creativity” provides a new window into the world of the survivor for the generations after World War II.
Opening Monday on Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem, the exhibition explores how survivors of the Nazi genocide “actually remember a place we too often said was indescribable,” explained curator Yehudit Shendar.
“This time, not without ears, or with our word capacity, but rather with our eyes,” Shendar told journalists at a preview that the exhibition provides an opportunity for visitors to attempt to understand what survivors have experienced.
Some 300 Holocaust survivors contributed hundreds of pieces to the exhibition, which is slated to be on display for a year. “We are so accustomed to think about the Holocaust in black and white,” Shendar observed. “But the black and white was the camera of the perpetrator – not what the victims have seen.” She added that although a piece might be rendered in color, it would not necessarily mean something positive.
“Colors don't mean that something is happy. It just means that it was real,” Shendar pointed out. “The reality of these works... is quite blunt. They spare nothing. This tells you that they believed that the reality needs to be seen as it is.”