Shoah Survivors; The Holocaust, Original Art, 2022, Greta Warren-Hill

“We old people are completely desolate,” (Rabbi Richard Feder) wrote in Jewish Tragedy: The Last Act, 1947. “We have lost our brothers and sisters, children, grandchildren — everything that was dear to us, everything that made life beautiful.... There is no balm that could heal these wounds.” - Leah Goldstein, writing in Yad Vashem’s Martyrdom & Resistance, 2021, quoting Rabbi Feder. When writing about the Holocaust most scholars and authors tend to presume that we – all of us – see those who survived the agony of the Shoah as relatively youthful, albeit aged beyond their chronology and expected physical state, given their experiences at the hands of their depraved and abusive captors whose depredations are so well documented and kept lucid and vital in the archives of Yad Vashem and other centers of study in the world today. I have never thought this. Survivors came (and still do today) from those who are clever, quiet, obedient, evasive, or paramountly intelligent enough to evade, avoid, circumvent, or even bedevil the exigencies of their surroundings. Perhaps, if anything, I expect the lucid elder to survive more frequently than the youthful, if for no other reason than having learned from the experience of life: having an accumulated knowledge base far greater than their younger counterparts on which to devise how best to make it to tomorrow, and to defer worrying about the next day until it presents itself. Both subjects in the image avoided deportation. There were reasons, but they are unknown. Sometimes too, not surviving was the result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, as is so often the case in our world today. Greta Warren-Hill’s latest work, Shoah Survivors, is based on the image that came to her very circuitously: A woman friend, of comparable years, had worked in photography – 4X5 format – many years ago and had visited with a retired official US government photographer who had chronicled post-war Europe, including the activities of the occupying US Army and various camp emancipations. His photographs were displayed in his home and this woman, this friend, before she became a friend, asked if she might make copies of them in large format (4X5 negative). It’s called an internegative in the trade: a negative from a photographic positive. He gave her permission to do so and she made several exposures (internegatives) of some of the most stunning images of that era, of that place, but this one stood out for the story it told and still does today. (Now the images are in various public archives.) The photograph though, lacked the depth of the characters, and the detail of their faces was lost in the lack of dimensionality and flatness of the fairly early field-based emulsion era. Their faces, their reflective expressions, their intensity, their absorption on the removal of the Nazi-befouled symbol of King David, the Magen David, as it is nearly finally removed from the man’s coat, and although nothing else was significant to the photograph’s impact, it was all there, and annoyingly so. This painting is oil on aluminum. It measures about 40cm by 50cm (16X20). The custom frame’s absolute blackness highlights the image it spatially defines. The scissors sheen with a metal finish from the “un-painting” process we’ve described before in a few of her other works where Greta creates starkness by exposing the aluminum beneath the brooding base coat of paint. After, she creates the corresponding images in shades of grey, white, black, and in this case, yellow. It’s time to identify who the two men were who figure so prominently, yet obscurely in the aftershock of the Holocaust, painted in this work: Simon Trampetter is the man cutting the Magen David (Mogen David, Shield of David, or Star of David) from his long-time, dear friend’s suit coat, Joseph Keller. Trampetter was 83 when this picture was taken in 1945. Keller was 84 years of age. Their shared focus and sense of awe as to the event’s monumental importance cannot be overstated. What I love most about this example of Greta’s work, is that she has removed all extraneous, superficial matter from the scene leaving only the two men sharing this far more important moment, perhaps – no, surely – pondering the fates of the many who did not emerge from the blackness of the immediate past. It is nearly the culminating moment just before their tontine is reconciled. That blackness is apparent in Greta’s work where she cancelled out all background, everything that was not absolutely key to the viewer’s focus, first to the faces, then to the hands, then to the only element of color she chose for us to see – the yellow of the Star of David, draws us inward and fixed on that point, perhaps pondering the salvation of a few and the deaths of millions. While difficult to completely see in the photographic images of her work here, her marks are highly expressive and masterful, and add a depthfulness that lifts the image off its base. Together, they express details that are typically not found in any experience other than what we call “real life.” Skin, hair, stubble, moustache, fingernails, scissors, knotted tie, coat fabrics, eyebrows, and other facial features are defined so clearly and cleverly, yet recede in importance as one of the last threads are cut, releasing Mr. Keller and Mr. Trampetter from their human bondage. Thank you! Amazing artist. Very happy with my purchase. Talent beyond words…(Acquired, "Shattered Hope" Pashtun girl observing life by Greta Warren-Hill. Painting now resides in Florida, USA) A little more than forty years ago I was standing at a deli counter somewhere on Fairfax in Los Angeles ordering a something-or-other on a Kaiser roll with mustard, to go, so it must have been brisket and it must have been at Canter’s on Fairfax, and noticed the man next to me, many years my senior. I was drawn to the numbers tattooed on his forearm. I said something to him and he said something in return and that was, as they say, that. I don’t remember what I said, but I remember what I felt: it was the true meaning and significance of the title of a very well known film chronicling the Holocaust, The Sorrow and the Pity. If you haven’t seen this film, you should, particularly if you think, Life is just so hard today… It had been maybe 35 years since that man’s liberation. Other than through books and films, I had no idea what he had seen, heard, said, nor did I know how close he was to death every day of his life, and how many of those he loved he had to watch die: his wife, his son, daughter, cousins, his father, maybe his mother? I don’t know if he regretted anything he may have done to save his life and not the life of another. I don’t know if his night’s dreams were filled with symbols and images of horror, or blessed with relief and a sense of righteousness. I hoped (and hope) for the latter. When you look at this incredible image Greta has brought forward in time, remember that under their jackets, shielded as David would have it, was a string of numbers that meant who lived and who died as definitively as any random number generator today, but with a finality that only He may manifest, for whatever reasons and to whatever end. This ought never to happen again; yet everyday somewhere in the world some variation of the greatest loss of all is played out to the gratification of some timeless, universal Golem. Very happy. Love the painting.(Acquired, "Sombra de Amor, (Shadow of Love) Guitarrista" by Greta Warren-Hill. Painting now resides in England, UK) This painting, entitled, Shoah Survivors, is available through any of our sites, including this one, for 5,218.18 (USD) or approximately the same in Euro, exclusive of shipping and any sales VAT taxes imposed by your country or state of residence, if asked to assess and report. It is an original work of art. No reproductions will be offered, as is always the case with Greta’s work. GL Warren is the Publisher of TheIndependentDaily (com) and a frequent Editorial contributor to same. She is also the Producer of the feature length independent film, The Abduction and Trial of George Bush, found on IMDB, and various short films. An accomplished artist she focuses primarily on the faces of women in the world, lending her interpretation to their sometimes-dire predicament at the hands of Man-made aggression. Her studio is in Arizona. Editorial offices are also in Arizona. Warren-Hill Productions: a collective of artists and writers based in Kingman, Arizona at the Historic Cohenour House.