Blog

May 12, 2016

Art and the new exhibition

The new Holocaust exhibition is a wonderful opportunity for us to show more of our collection. More than 300 artefacts will be displayed thus doubling the number of objects on our previous exhibition.

I have a soft spot for drawings and paintings as in my former career I used to be the curator of a major art gallery in Johannesburg. I’ve always wanted to exhibit some of the original artworks that we have in the Sydney Jewish Museum collection. We have only a handful of artworks produced during the Holocaust. These artists did not have ready access to materials, and faced punishment if they were caught documenting the horrors that were taking place daily. Artwork made during the Holocaust, when experiences of events are raw and fresh in the mind of those experiencing it, are particularly powerful.

One of the artworks which will go on display belonged to Ernest Morgenstern, who was not an artist; in fact, he was a lawyer by profession when he was deported from his hometown in Czechoslovakia to Theresienstadt, the concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, in January 1942. He had the artistic skills to depict the events as he witnessed them. His non-Jewish fiancée, Trudy, smuggled art materials in to him with various transports and thus began his compulsion to draw and to document.

Just before he was deported to Auschwitz in December 1943, Ernest’s drawings were hidden. (They were only recovered after liberation). After the war, in July 1945, Ernest and Trudy married. As soon as they found an apartment he began to draw again. This time he was compelled to recreate the agony of daily existence in Auschwitz. His ability to not only recall scenes like the beating of an inmate in the barracks, but also convey the  emotional experience, reveals how artwork bears witness, and in many ways visually represents the unspeakable.

Author: Roslyn Sugarman, Curator