A Sunday open house at the Vermilion County Museum marked the beginning of “The Auschwitz Experience” at the museum, showing the artwork of prisoners of Auschwitz. Much of these works were done by the prisoners in the years after their liberation, not only as therapy for themselves but as a way to make sure the world understood what happened during the Holocaust. And as Museum Director Sue Richter recently mentioned, some of these works were done by the artists while they were prisoners, but then had to be recreated because they lost them or had them taken away while they were imprisoned.
Sunday’s grand opening included Dr. Brian Kahn, Co-Director of the Holocaust Education Center of the Champaign-Urbana Jewish Federation. As Dr. Kahn explained, a diplay like this from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland, of actual artwork by Holocaust prisoners, being seen in the United State, is very unique.
AUDIO: For decades they have been doing exhibits at the museum in Poland. And many of these artists, that you see upstairs, actually worked for that museum after the war, and were on the staff to help curate things. So I think it’s very unique that it’s here. They didn’t plan for it to be outside of the country. So we had a lot of dealings with translation that we had to deal with back and forth, you know, across the ocean.
Also part of Sunday’s program was Westville High School Social Studies teacher Bob Lehmann, who teaches a one semester elective Holocaust Education class at Westville High. He says getting all these artists’ stories together as one is quite overwhelming.
AUDIO: Not that these artists haven’t been seen on various websites before, but to be put in a collection like this that traces a person’s journey from arriving at the camp, all the way through the camp experiences, is what makes this exhibit unique. And it’s done through art; through the pictures, the drawings, the sketches, the paintings of the prisoners; and not through photographs. Which I think makes it more powerful that just looking at a photograph. Because now you’re seeing paintings and drawings done from somebody’s memory of what they experienced.
This display will be at the Vermilion County Museum until the end of the month. Two other free programs on the schedule during that time include a music and art overview by Dr Eric Simonson and Ronnie Johnson from DACC’s Liberal Arts Department, 6:30 PM Thursday March 17th; and sessions for fifth through eighth graders with the Danville Art League, from 10 AM to 1 PM on Saturday, March 19th. For reservations with either program, call the Vermilion County Museum at 217-442-2922.
