Marlene Miller

Artworks

Schlaftwagon: Who Will Say Kaddish for them? 1994 Mixed media sculpture 60 x 24 x 24 The sculpture, Sleepwagon evokes image of deportation and the killing of children and adults. The middle of the pedestal refers to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and contains photos and text from The Stroop Report which documented the destruction of the Ghetto. Around the base are "Kaddish" candles.

Schlaftwagon: Who Will Say Kaddish for them? 1994 Mixed media sculpture 60 x 24 x 24 Many people who have seen this work see the figures as dead children. However, their appearance is of adults, and in fact, they are puppets. The SS Administration in the ghettos did not mandate a Yellow Star on baby carriages. Nevertheless, the artist brings together many symbols of the Holocaust, and tries to raise questions of redemption

Artist Statement

Barancik is a Philadelphia artist and graphic designer, and has created small notes, "Kvitl," which are "beautiful" and reflect on the idea that small artistic creations can be effective. Jews praying in Jerusalem often leave notes in the Western Wall, praying for the Messianic era to begin, these are called Kvitl. Look closely at these--one can almost miss them when compared to scale of other works.

Barancik has said of his work: The Shoah is past. What am I to make from my living Jewish flesh? Just before my fortieth birthday, I was invited to the Vermont Studio Center as a visiting artist and writer. It was the spring of 1990. The weather was bitter cold and the snow dirty. The long Vermont mud season was beginning. I was given a small, stark room with plenty of light and heat and the opportunity to work without distractions for two weeks. What you see is the result of that intense burst of study, prayer and artistic fury. These collages and kvitls g were a catharsis for the pain that I felt as a spiritual descendant of Jewish Holocaust victims. The whole purpose of the "final solution" was to keep people like me from being born. I have not done much "Holocaust Art" nor grieving since that fortnight four years ago. Instead my wife and I have focused our energies on raising our only daughter as a religious American Jew and supporting the state of Israel through the American Jewish Committee and Middle East Forum. Presently, I am working on a series of Iyrical kvitls for a post-Holocaust Judaism and new millennium.

A kvitl is a small, folded message that highly religious Jews of Eastern Europe inserted into the crevices of tombstones of great rabbis and sages. Kvitls often petitioned the spirit of the departed or the Almighty to answer prayers or grant wishes.

Teaching Applications

Questions:

1. What does size have to do with art about the Holocaust?
2. These small works are beautiful. Can art about the Holocaust be beautiful?
3. Examine the messages. For what do they ask? Are they vindictive?
4. What symbols does the artist use in these works?