By Mary Burslem
“I never rationally thought that I was going to die, but there was an unbelievable urge to create. I was in the same position as all the people around me, and I realized that they were close to death. But I never thought of myself like that. I was floating. I was outside the reality of existence. My task was simply to portray what was happening. I was a spectator.” Halina Olomucki, Auschwitz survivor
“I took up pencil and paintbrush and used them as a springboard to enter the world of the imagination. I wanted to see the world differently, experience it differently. In all the hundreds of paintings I have produced I always painted the same world, yet also a world that changes every second. A world beyond time. I ignored reality.” Dr Karl Fleischman, doctor and artist at Terezín.
Although often forbidden, victims of the Holocaust expressed themselves and their experiences through the use of music, performance, art and literature, almost as if in a cathartic way, however momentarily the relief was felt. As well as finding a way to preserve their cultures, the artworks, performances and writings of the Holocaust victims have ultimately helped future generations to learn about and come to terms with their experiences of the ghettos and concentration camps.
(Image from original photograph by Rob Wakefield of Menashe Kadishman's installation “Shalechat” (Falling Leaves), located in the Memory Void, Jewish Museum, Berlin, some rights reserved under the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 licence).
Visual arts
As early as 1927, when the National Socialist Society for German Culture was formed, ideas about the “corruption of art” were being expressed. By 1933, the term “degenerate art” (Entartete Kunst) was commonly used to describe a lot of modern art, often by Jewish artists, and in 1937 a special exhibition of Entartete Kunst was opened in Munich. Many of the artists exhibited at the exhibition are now considered to be key artists of the twentieth century, including Chagall, Ernst, Kandinsky, Klee and Kirchner.
A large amount of artwork was surreptitiously produced in the ghettos and concentration camps throughout Germany and Eastern Europe. Not only did it fulfil a basic need for the artist to express themselves through their art, but it has also provided later generations with a permanent record of the horror of what they experienced.
Performing arts
In 1938 the term “Entartete Musik” (Degenerate Music) was adopted by the Nazis to brand certain types of music that did not fit into the ideal of music that was composed by people of Aryan descent. Thus, composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Bruckner and Wagner were encouraged and atonal music, jazz and works by Jewish composers, such as Berthold Goldschmidt, Pavel Haas, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Hans Krása, Viktor Ullmann and Franz Waxman were suppressed.
Despite being incarcerated, music was composed and performed in the concentration camps as well. Camp orchestras and bands were formed and musicians were called on to perform traditional German music for the SS and Nazi officers. In some camps weekly cabaret programmes and dance presentations were held for the elite members of the camp. However, folk songs were also sung at secret performances and, in Terezín, the Freizeitgestaltung (Administration for Free Time Activities) allowed for the acquisition of instruments and scores, rehearsals, official composers and musicians, and performances of new compositions.
Literature and ideas from the Holocaust and its aftermath for survivors and subsequent generations
Diaries, notes, prose and poetry, written at the time of the Holocaust provide valuable testimonies of thousands of people, both in the ghettoes and in the concentration camps. These range from Primo Levi’s memoirs, Elie Wiesel’s novels and Paul Célan’s poetry about their own experiences of the Holocaust.
The arts in response to the Holocaust
Since the end of the Second World War much has been much expressed through art, words and music about the Holocaust, by later generations. These include Art Spiegelman’s comic books ‘Maus I’ (published in 1986) and ‘Maus II’ (1991) about his father’s experience, recent Holocaust art exhibitions to preserve the memory of the Holocaust and the BBC’s music memorial film shown in January 2005 in which a number of international musicians performed music from the Jewish liturgy as well as works by Chopin, Górecki, Messiaen, Viktor Ullmann and Bach live at Auschwitz. A number of Holocaust memorial monuments have also been created in recent years to act as a memorial to the people who died and also to serve as a reminder of what was allowed to happen during the Holocaust.
This Limelight presents a small selection of the 'Best of the Web' (reviewed by Intute) – sites that are outstanding starting points for arts and humanities teaching and research. There are also hundreds of others provided in the Related Searches below – many of these sites in turn offer their own lists of links that are worth exploring.
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- This free, 'teach yourself' tutorial that lets you practise your Internet Information Skills, Internet for Historians
Intute records
Florida Holocaust Museum | Imre Kertész : a medium for the spirit of Auschwitz | On Spiegelman’s Maus I and II | Karl Jaspers’s Web site | Responses to the Holocaust : a hypermedia sourcebook for the humanities | Nobel Peace Prize 1986 : Elie Wiesel | Paul Celan home page | Teacher’s guide to the Holocaust : music | Music behind walls | Music of the Holocaust : highlights from the collection | Last expression : art and Auschwitz | Holocaust art exhibit | Arthur Szyk : drawing on war | Teacher’s guide to the Holocaust : art | Art and politics of Arthur Szyk | Learning about the Holocaust through art | Partial transcript of an interview with Art Spiegelman | Terezin Chamber Music Foundation | Witness and legacy : contemporary art about the Holocaust |
Suggested searches
Jewish art | Holocaust paintings | Holocaust artists | Holocaust art | Holocaust literature | Jewish literature | Jewish music | Holocaust music | Holocaust memorials |
