Educational Resources: Art and the Holocaust

Hypocritical Oath. Fritz Hirschberger.

Art is a very powerful and thought-provoking tool that educators can utilize to teach the Holocaust. Art of the Holocaust can be explored through four main areas.

Note: It is important to keep in mind that all materials(including artwork) that are used when teaching the Holocaust need to be placed within their historical context.

Four Categories of Art

Art Created by the Victims: This art was created in a direct response to document, witness and respond to Nazi persecution.Examples can be seen in the work of the artists listed below. In addition to art actually done during the actual event, there are also works created immediatly after liberation or at the end of the war to record their experiences as a direct witness.

• Felix Nussbaum
• Charlotte Salomon
• Eli Leskley
• Esther Lurie
• Boris Kobe
• Peter Aldor
• Stanislaw Toegel

Art Created by the Nazis: This is art created by the Nazis and the artists of the Third Reich to promote their ideology. Below is a link to one of the largest online archives of Nazi Propaganda Art.

• German Propaganda Archive, Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. An examination of the use and misuse of art and the visual during the the Nazi period.

Outside Art: Art that was created as a direct response to world events taking place between 1933-1945 in Nazi Germany and Europe. Much of this work is in the form of editorial cartoons. Examples of this type of art can be seen in the work of the artists below.

• Arthur Szyk

Rememberance/Aftermath: Work exploring the Holocaust by artists (survivors, and others) in the aftermath of the event.

• Christian Boltanski
• Anslem Kiefer
• R.B. Kitaj
• Natan Nuchi
• Jozef Szanja

Links to Educational Resources

The following are a selection of links to web sites that specialize in artwork created during or in response to the Holocaust and other genocides.

• Art of the Holocaust, Web page devoted to art of the Holocaust from University of South Florida. Complete from Nazi art through art by survivors and teaching guides.
• The Last Expression, Major exhibition of art from the concentration camps curated by David Mickenberg of Northwestern University's Block Gallery. The site is an exceptional educational resource and includes full videotaped interviews with artists who survived the German camps and continued to paint.
• Learning About the Holocaust Through Art, An important new contribution to Holocaust education. This free website provides high-quality reproductions of art works produced during the Holocaust. It also includes biographies of the artists and histories of the ghettos and camps in which they were interned. Study resources and lesson plans support its use in the classroom and an interactive section enables users to choose and annotate works for their own online collection. The website is available in English, Hebrew, Russian and Spanish. The website has been jointly produced by World ORT (an international educational charity) and Beit Lohamei Haghetaot (a major Holocaust museum in Israel).
• Exhibtions: Yad Vashem, A collection of online exhibitions produced by Israel's living memorial to the Holocaust.
• The Legacy Project, Framing a dialogue in the global language of loss among works of creative art and scholarship is an unprecedented cultural event. Through it, The Legacy Project seeks a collective, retrospective reflection on the losses that constitute the legacy of the last century.

Art of Diversity and Acceptance

COEXISTENCE, An outdoor exhibition by the Museum on the Seam, Jerusalem brings the universal message of diversity and acceptance of the other to the world community. In 2004 CHGS, the University of Minnesota and several community partners brougnt the exhibition to the Twin Cities.
COEXISTENCE: 2004 (PDF)

Art in Response to other Genocides

Alfredo Jaar: Rawanda