Shadows of Auschwitz

3 Pages 626 Words

Shadows of Auschwitz

The Holocaust was from 1933 to 1939, where the Nazi’s made it their lifelong duty to ruin Jewish people. It started in 1933 by new German laws forcing Jewish people to quit certain jobs. In 1935, German Jews were stripped of their citizenship. Eventually, anti-Jewish regulations made it to where the Jewish couldn’t attend public schools, or walk in certain sections of German cities. Their businesses and properties were either seized or they were forced to sell them at bargain prices. Finally, the Nazi’s turned to physical destruction. They arrested Jewish men, and murdered innocent individuals. This riot became known as Kristallnacht, or the ‘Night of broken glass’.

At Witness and Legacy, one collage, which I was very awe-struck by, was in it’s own separate room. The piece is called ‘Shadows of Auschwitz’, by Pearl Hirshfield. The equivocal space she uses is amazing. When you walk into the room, the walls are black, making it completely dark. The floor is a plane, also painted black. There are lines on the floor painted to make it look like a railroad track. All the colors she uses are neutral, mostly blacks or grays. To the left, there is a kinetic piece, consisting of a halogen lamp, and around the light is a revolving black thing about 3 inches wide. When it revolves around the light, you see the halogen light, and when the black part covers it, it shadows the room. It also makes shadows constantly move about the room.

To the right is a representational structure that looks like a wooden fence, with slots in between each fence post. On the fence slots, there are images of a train. This is all the width of a hallway, about 30 feet long. At the back of the room, on the wall is written ‘Beyond the fence stand the Lords of Death, and not far away the train is waiting’.

On the other side of the room, facing the opposite direction is more of the collage. On the opposit...