Hidden memories

Contemporary artists remember the Holocaust

by Leon Nigrosh

WITNESS AND LEGACY: CONTEMPORARY ART ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST At the DeCordova Museum, 51 Sandy Pond Road, Lincoln, through March 12, 2000.

The mention of the Holocaust is enough to prompt visions of six million gaunt faces of Jews, along with countless

Catholics, Gypsies, gays, and anyone else that Hitler thought of as less-than-human. Or even worse, we see images of their naked, emaciated bodies stacked in hideous piles. The near total absence of such imagery at the DeCordova Museum makes the current exhibition even more powerful and mesmerizing.

Twenty-four American artists, some of them Holocaust survivors or children of survivors, bring us closer to the horrors of the genocide as well as to the emotional aftermath, which persists to this day. It took Kitty Klaidman nearly 40 years to have the courage to return to the places in western Slovakia where she hid out as a child in order to survive the Nazi's ethnic cleansing. In another context, her Hidden Memories: Attic in Sastin might be viewed as an exercise in geometric lines and planes. But both this painting and Hidden Memories: The Crawlspace are, in fact, graphic reproductions of the cramped quarters where Klaidman and her family were concealed by neighbors during that dreadful period of her childhood.

Two of Joyce Lyon's large oil-stick drawings from her series "Conversations with Rzeszow" represent the quiet landscapes of Montana's Mt. Oberg and of Birkenau, Germany. One drawing is a skillfully rendered adaptation of the mountain trees, while the other drawing is of the remaining barracks chimneys. The seeming ease with which the drawings were created belies Lyon's concern regarding the passion-play between life and death. The color intaglio prints by Mauricio Lasansky, rather than belabor the indignities suffered by millions, instead refer to peace, life, and human respect.

For her sculpture Wrappings, Shirley Samberg put wood, burlap, and paint together to construct bent and twisted shapes that have taken on a human appearance, and can easily provoke feelings of grief and loss. Although these sculptures and the many paintings bestir a strong response, they are still objects that can be viewed from both a physical and emotional distance.

Far more powerful are the several large-scale installations that must be entered for full effect. Edith Altman's Reclaiming the Symbol/The Art of Memory attempts to return honor to the Greek Cross that Hitler turned into his symbol of hate. This dry and analytical commentary invokes discussion of symbols in general, and its didactic panels serve as proof that the swastika was a representation of the sun's power and of peace. It is left to us to decide whether these attributes should be remembered -- or not.

Pearl Hirshfield's installation Shadows of Auschwitz forces us to pass single file along the wall of a simulated cattle car, while tattoo numbers are reflected on their bodies, which evokes the helplessness and forced anonymity that the original victims must have felt.

The most compelling of installations is Gerda Meyer-Bernstein's Shrine. Dark and narrow, it invokes the conditions of the cattle cars. One wall is lined with a repeated picture of crematoria ovens, the other is plastered with photos of Rudolph Höss, the infamous commander of Auschwitz. At the far wall, hangs a full-sized color reproduction of an open oven door. Its impact is softened by the inclusion of three yahrtzeit votive candles, echoed by three actual candles placed on a stand just above the hay-covered floor. For all its claustrophobic presence and inference of death and despair, the room expresses a positive aspect as well. The flowers inside the silent oven left in tribute by anonymous visitors, and the memorial candles act as symbols of healing, life, and of hope for the future.

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