Jewish Art in Poland

By Miriam Iken
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Art can be a representation.  A representation of feelings, emotions, expressions, events, and communities.  Art can be found in many different forms:  a painting, a sculpture, with color and in black and white.  This past year, I viewed some of the most interesting and meaningful pieces of artwork.  During Passover vacation of my year abroad at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, I participated in a week-long trip to Poland.  Twenty-seven of us traveled to several cities, visiting cemeteries, ghettos, concentration camps, synagogues and other historical landmarks relating to the Holocaust.  At most of these locations, there were monuments to commemorate events and victims of the Holocaust.  I realized that artwork created to represent a serious event is made in a way to evoke intense feelings and emotions.

The first of the five concentration camps that we visited was Majdanek, located in Lublin, Poland.  Upon entering the camp, there is a large stone monument.  There is a descending path with tall walls of stone on either side.  At the end of the path, there are steps that lead to a greater monument.  I remember walking through the pathway as the walls seemed to grow higher around me.  The designer of the monument, Victor Tolkin, attempted to make the visitors feel enclosed and surrounded in a small area.  He succeeded.

The fourth concentration camp that we visited was Plaszow in Krakow, Poland.  Today, one would be astonished that a camp could exist in its location: right on the main road.  There is nothing left there except for grass and a few stone memorials.  One monument at Plaszow is of five people all with their heads down.  They are all turning slightly with their left arms forward.  The monument represents the people whose lives were lost in the Holocaust; there are six hands shown for the six million people.  The somber look on the individuals faces remind us of the miserable times the Jews experienced.

The final concentration camp that we visited was Treblinka, which is near Warsaw, Poland.  There are no remnants from the camp itself, only memorials and symbols.  Seeing the memorials at Treblinka was one of the most emotion-filled experiences of the trip.  In one section of Treblinka, there is an open field surrounded by trees.  In the field, there is a curving line made out of 17,000 tombstones.  The tombstone memorial, also known as the "Valley of Stones," represent only a small portion of the number of lives lost in Treblinka, let alone the Holocaust.  Each of the stones has a name of a country, city, village, or person was involved in the Holocaust and related to Treblinka.  One larger stone says "Never Again" in several different languages, signifying that an event such as the Holocaust should never be repeated.  Viewing the Valley of Stones, and knowing that so many more people were affected than are represented there, was a difficult realization.

The artwork portrayed at the concentration camps in Poland is extremely meaningful to Jewish people.  I could feel the emotion that the artists were trying to convey from their work.  The artwork is something that will stay with me forever; I can still remember the meaning and details of each monument as I think back to the images.  Artwork in the form of a monument is meaningful, historical, and will last for years to come.

Miriam Iken is a senior at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.  She recently returned from her year abroad at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel.

[Posted 10/17/09]