FROM THE COLLECTION
Józef Jonski, second letter from Dachau Concentration Camp to his aunt, Bronislawa Nowak, in Lodz. Dated 16 July 1944.
ABOUT THE ARCHIVEErich Lichtblau (Eli Leskly) Collection
The Museum’s Erich Lichtblau Theresienstadt Collection of original paintings or ghetto-picture diaries is the largest collection of this artist’s work. Through their technical excellence, the works reveal defiance, humor, satire, and indifference to the madness of the world run by the Nazi regime. Theresienstadt (Terezin), besides being a main incarceration center for the Central European Jews, also served as a place used to deceive the world that the Jews of Europe were alive and being treated well. The Nazi regime used it as a stage for filming propaganda and a tourist stop for international commissions. The Lichtblau works capture the complications and ironies of Theresienstadt. They universally depict the fundamental desperation lurking in every moment of life in the show ghetto.
Erich Lichtblau’s artworks significantly differ from a ‘typical’ Holocaust graphic. Instead of a barbed wire, striped uniform, and death scenes, we see ghetto life through the prism of everyday errands and chores, depicted in grotesques and caricatures. Erich Lichtblau convincingly challenges the Nazi anti-Jewish concepts by depicting and interpreting the ghetto life in a style he would use for a ‘normal’ commercial advertisement in his prewar practice. In the spring of 1945, Erich Lichtblau cut most of his pictures into pieces to protect himself and his wife. Fortunately, his wife hid these fragments, rescuing them for posterity. Our Collection includes these fragments as well as re-created watercolors done by the artist in Israel during the 1950s throughout the 1960s when he changed his name to Eli Leskly.
To Learn, To Remember, To Hope: The Shalhevet High School Poland/Israel Trip
Educator and photographer Eddie Friedman brings to the Museum a moving exhibit documenting the profound experiences of Shalhevet High School students as they participated in the school’s annual pilgrimage to Israel via Auschwitz and Poland. Personal narration from the student-participants describing how this once-in-a-lifetime journey altered their perceptions of themselves and enhances the power of Eddie’s images. This exhbit runs from January 24, 2010-April 1, 2010.
