Liora Chaya Levich

As one of the few Jewish students at Augustana College, I was always looking for ways to incorporate my Jewish culture and identity into the Augie community. This proved to be a bit challenging, as the Jewish student and staff population is relatively low; however, with Augustana's involvement with the Giefman Endowment in Judaica, I had the opportunity to create an artwork that showcased my Jewish identity, as well as spoke to my fellow Augie peers on a personal level. As Augustana's website states, "The Geifman Endowment in Judaica was established in 1992 by late Rock Island residents Gerry and Morris M. Geifman. Through their generosity, Augustana College offers a juried student competition titled "A Response to the Holocaust" and co-sponsors a yearly guest lecture in Judaic Studies and Culture. In the year that I participated, not only was I able to include my art piece in this Holocaust studies showcase, but I also had the honor and privilege of meeting Erving Roth, a Holocaust survivor from Amsterdam, who told his personal story about survival, and had a chance to view my art piece.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although all of the submissions were outstanding, mine had more of a personal touch-- being a Jewish individual, as well as having family members that survived the Holocaust allowed me to have a unique and more in depth perspective of how to convey my personal response to the Holocaust. I had to channel every creative bit within myself to come up with something that could not only portray my personal thoughts about the Holocaust, but speak to my peers on a personal and more creative level. Since my own grandmother was a child Holocaust survivor, I decided to dedicate this piece specifically to her and all the other child survivors. Below is my description on my piece, “A Flight for Hope” which I ended up placing 2nd prize for. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I was first deciding what kind of project I wanted to submit for the Geifman Prize in Holocaust studies, I struggled to figure out a way to portray my thoughts and feelings towards this tragic time in history; I wanted to ensure that whatever project I made would come from the heart, and portray my thoughts in a pure and meaningful manner. At first, I thought about writing an essay about my experience as a Jewish student visiting the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Majdanek this last February, but there was a part of me that couldn’t help but think that simply writing about the horrors of the Holocaust and my experience visiting the concentration camps was not enough— I’m not sure if anything will ever really be enough to fully comprehend such horrific crimes against humanity, but I wanted to do more than just type some words on a piece of paper. I wanted to take my time and create something that people could look at, something they could relate to their own lives, and above all something that would trigger an emotional reaction.

 

Before I visited the concentration camps, I would always read about them, see pictures of them in books or online, hear the stories of the endless nightmares that my ancestors had to endure; however, nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to see with my own eyes. No amount of research, pictures, or word of mouth stories could have ever prepared me for what I absorbed with my own eyes on that trip, and I realized that seeing isn't necessarily just about believing, but instead seeing is feeling. I didn’t have to see the concentration camps in order to believe, but I needed to see them in order to scratch the surface of comprehending my emotions and feeling what all those innocent lost lives felt during their time there. That was my goal with this particular piece that I created— I wanted people to not just to see my art piece but to feel the emotions I attempted to portray.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The idea of creating this piece out of butterflies came to me when I realized I wanted to make a tribute commemorating the children lost in the Holocaust, so this piece is specifically for all the innocent children that never had a chance to fully live out their lives. The reason I chose butterflies is due to the fact that the butterfly is the official symbol for children of the Holocaust as it represents a delicate, beautiful life form that is free to escape and fly away some place new, a sign of hope for life, and a sign for happiness in dark times. Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, a doctor known for her work on death and dying, described her visit to the Majdanek concentration camp after WWII, and she explained how when she walked into the children’s barracks, among the scattered clothes and shoes she noticed something carved and drawn in the walls: butterflies. She was both amazed and confused by her findings, and it was only twenty five years later, after working with terminally ill patients, that she realized what these butterfly drawings represented.

 

Despite their elementary age, the children of the Holocaust knew they were going to die and Dr. Kubler-Ross explains, "Once dead, they would be out of that hellish place. Not tortured anymore. Not separated from their families. Not sent to gas chambers. None of this gruesome life mattered anymore. Soon they would leave their bodies the way a butterfly leaves its cocoon. And I realized that was the message they wanted to leave for future generations*." Overall, that is the main representation of the butterfly in this piece, because the children knew they were going to die and were leaving a message of hope; their bodies might not make it, but the colorful butterflies represent their immortal souls, and that they would always go on living, if not physically then in a different form— in the form of a butterfly, free to live a beautiful life full of color.

*source: http://spiritofbutterflies.com/butterflies-and-the-holocaust/

More on Dr.Kubler-Ross here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_K%C3%BCbler-Ross

 

My decision in choosing to focus specifically on children of the Holocaust stems from a simple realization that children are the future, and without them the progression of our world would cease. Each individual child that was lost throughout the Holocaust had potential for a bright and fulfilling future, but unfortunately never had the opportunity to embrace and live out that future to its fullest. It's the most tragically cruel jigsaw puzzle of our time: potential, a yearning to live, to explore, to create, to build... all the pieces are there. All but one piece that was stolen at the blink of an eye: opportunity. Children are said to be like sponges, absorbing everything they see around them and always asking questions, but often times we forget that they are also extremely perceptive and intelligent in their own way. The children that were victims of the Holocaust knew exactly what was going on, and although they might not have fully understood the entirety of their situation, they knew what their fate had in store. 

 

Yet, despite all that, they were able to create a symbol for themselves that gave them the tiniest bit of hope and light among the dark, when they were starving, murdered in the gas chambers, torn away from their families, tortured, beaten, and stripped away of everything they knew and loved. Imagine the kind of mental strength an adult, let alone a child, might need to realize that although your life is coming to an end through living out your nightmares, there is still hope for a beautiful, free life, one that does not take place behind barbed fences. The butterfly symbolizes that beauty of freedom for the children, and they were able to take this simple organism and turn it into their everlasting hope-- in this way, we can learn from the children of the Holocaust and come to the understanding that we have to teach our children in this current generation of the importance of hope and the meaning of a life worth living. We need to teach these lessons to our children today to ensure that they can carry on this train of thought and continue to bring forth a bright and peaceful future, one where an atrocity such as the Holocaust would never come to fruition again.

 

The big, dark butterfly represents their struggle throughout this dark time in history, through the gruesome pictures displayed on the butterfly’s wings, and the wave of colorful butterflies flying out represents that despite what these children had to endure, the time of darkness was eventually overcome, and life was full of color yet again. The wave of colorful butterflies also represents the souls of the children, and although the majority of them might have not physically survived, their memory lives on forever; it’s also designed in a way that it’s flying out of the big butterfly to symbolize that good can overcome evil and leave it behind, always moving forward, but never forgetting the horrific tragedies that took place. The meaning of colorful butterflies designed in a rainbow effect is to recognize that the children lost to the Holocaust came from every corner Europe, and even beyond; it's a recognition to each and every child, whatever their cultural background was, because the Holocaust did not end in the concentration camps-- it spread to all the children in hiding, all the children on the run with their families, all the children living in the ghettos, and all the children that suffered in any way. At one point or another, they were all freed from their nightmares.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall, this creative outlet allowed me to have an opportunity to portray a deeply personal and important piece of history and my background to my Augustana peers. It was important for me to share this piece of my personal history, due to the simple fact that despite of the progress the world has made since those tragic times, racism and even anti-Semitism are still very much alive and well. Unfortunately, I have experienced anti-Semitic comments and occurrences in my lifetime, and the fact that there are people out there that still think it’s acceptable to treat Jews and others of different backgrounds so horribly is unacceptable. If anything, I hoped to portray to my Augustana peers the importance of Holocaust education for that specific reason, and hope it resonated with them in some way. Creative thinking is not just a personal activity that we can channel into art or personal means, but it can also be channeled into an opportunity to educate, mend bridges, and create new relationships.