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Shirley Samberg

Artworks

	The Aposteosis of Krupp,1988 Acrylic on canvas 72 x 64 Alfried Krupp, a member of the Krupp Family that ran Germany's largest armaments industry, was tried as a war criminal by the Allies at Nuremberg. Although he was found guilty and sentenced to a long prison term, he was restored to power because of the advent of the Cold War, threats of Soviet encroachment on Germany, and the need to rebuild Germany as a western ally.
	Our Most Important Product,1987 Acrylic on canvas 71 x 50 Trachtman's paintings are in a pop art style and use images taken from film montage techniques. Here he shows Hitler's assumption of power on January 30, 1933. President Hindenburg sits on the right. The "most important product" of the Third Reich would eventually be the gas chambers, built by the TOPF Corporation of Erfurt, Germany.
	Peace in Our Time, 1991-92 Acrylic on canvas 98 x 60 Trachtman currently lives in Boston and is an empathizer. His works are pop-art in form, integrate ideas from montaging movies, and are very political. He identifies who are the real culprits-not necessarily the Nazis, but the corporate CEOs who aided them, plus the false ambitions of politicians like Neville Chamberlain, who believe that through appeasement, "peace in our time" was possible (REF: Munich Agreement, October, 1938).
	Eastern Tours,1988 Acrylic on canvas 84 x 60 Trachtman's painting raises the issue of corporate culpability during the Third Reich. I.G. Farnen, the largest German conglomerate, owned Bayer, AG, Degesh (The German Insecticide Company) and other firms. They produced "Zyklon B" gas for use at Auschwitz and Maideanek death camps for killing inmates. They sold this chemical to the S.S. at a profit. Trachtman asks, "how could it happen?" and suggests that all of the perpetrators did not wear military uniforms.

Artist Statement

Trachtman currently lives in Boston and is an empathizer. His work are pop-art in form, integrate ideas from montaging movies and are very political. He identifies who are the real culprits--not necessarily the Nazis, but the corporate CEO's who aided them, plus the false ambitions of politicians like Neville Chamberlain, who believe that through appeasement, "peace in our time" was possible (REF: Munich Agreement, October, 1938). Suggestion: carry a bottle of Bayer aspirin, or BASF Audio/video tape. These are two of Farben's companies today. Bayer performed medical experiments on inmates at Auschwitz.
I was born in the United States, three years before the Nazis came to power in Germany. I was lucky. I grew up in the "Arsenal of Democracy." And yet it was not always safe. Anti-Semitism thrived here. At any time you could be attacked, verbally, physically or both, by kids your own age or older, and sometimes by adults. The end of the war came with newsreels of the camps and the infinite mounds of the dead being bulldozed into great pits. The survivors looked just barely alive. Their pain was palpable. When I found my direction as an artist, I made work about issues of the day. While pursuing these themes, I found myself continuously drawn to the history of Nazism. Yet it did not appear in my work. I wasn't ready. In late 1985, I was. What I wished to do was demystify the demonology of Nazism. I wanted to show the men behind this great engine of genocide: the major industrialists and corporations of Germany, such as Thyssen, Krupp, Daimler, Benz, Siemens, to name a few. Ten years after the war, all of them were back in business. Understanding the epoch of Nazism, economically, politically and socially, is part of the unfinished business of our era. As this century draws to a close, aspects of Nazism are manifesting themselves in various parts of the world. We must penetrate the darkness of our past in order to have a future.

Teaching Applications

Questions:

1. How does the artist comment on the failure of diplomacy?
2. What is I.G. Farben? What does it look like now?
3. Who built the crematoria in the camps?
4. How did Hitler come to power?
5. What is the lasting legacy of the third Reich?
6. What happened to Alfried Krupp?
7. Examine current newspaper reports for stories about the involvement of German industry in the Holocaust and the call for restitution and reparations for slave works.
8. The painting about Krupp shows Afro-American MPs guarding him. What was the status of equality and racism in the American army and American society during this period? What message is the artist sending?