Art in the Midst of Hell: Forbidden Art from Auschwitz

I took my boys on a field trip to Elms College today to visit the Forbidden Art Exhibit (http://www.elms.edu/elms-news/2015-News/Forbidden-Art-Exhibit-Tells-Personal-Stories-of-Auschwitz-Prisoners). This exhibit features large-scale photographs with accompanying descriptions of art made in the concentration camp at Auschwitz.

It is truly powerful to view these pieces. The people who made them were undergoing such horrors, yet their humanity remained. They still had that impulse to create, to contribute to the world, to remember, and perhaps most importantly to hope. There were sculpture and drawings and even a small sarcophagus which held a single bone, an effort to provide a dignified burial in the midst of so much unexplainable death. The one that brought me to tears, however, was a book of fairy tales a father had made for his children back home - heartbreaking.

These pieces are examples of moments of beauty in the midst of hell, a tribute to the human spirit and all who suffered in the concentration camps.