"U.S. AND THE HOLOCAUST": AUSCHWITZ AND ART

     Watching Ken Burns' recent PBS documentary, "U.S. and the Holocaust," is an experience well worth our time. The reason: while most viewers are familiar with the basic facts of the Holocaust and its horrific imagery, there's a lot we don't know after all these decades: namely, the role America played ( or didn't play ) in saving Jews from the Nazis. 

     But there's another, more personal part to be learned as well, separate from the Jewish relatives whom we may have lost during this period.  Thus, "U.S. and the Holocaust" enabled yours truly to revive the experience of visiting Auschwitz some twenty years ago and also gave me new and startling insights into the images I saw there. Such images have become iconic, abundant in media sources like articles, books, newscasts, photographs and films. Consider the archway to the camp's entrance which reads, " Work Liberates" in German, the filthy barricks where Jewish prisoners slept, and the piles of dead bodies lying on the ground.

     Although these same objects were still there on my actual visit ( except for the corpses ), there were differences. For instance, both the archway and barracks looked smaller.  As a result, they also seemed less significant, perhaps because the items were presented in context. Thus, in real life, objects were all part of the total environment, not actually standing alone, now positioned next to each other, particularly the buckets and pails standing by the barracks' doorways. In my mind, those two articles were as horrible as the buildings themselves. I could not help but wonder how long the cleaning materials had been there. Certainly not since Auschwitz. After all, the present staff had to keep things sanitary for the tourists, didn't they?

    Conversely, some items seemed more, not less, significant when seen in context. The most striking instances had to do with ordinary, everyday belongings which, when arranged in a huge pile and encased in a clear box- like form, became something other than what they were: hair, suitcases, and reading glasses. It was the first place in the entire concentration camp that we could imagine real people ever being there, where that could have been our own hair, suitcase or glasses.

     No doubt, such a notion is difficult to comprehend. Yet another realization is also almost unbelievable, namely the fact that the objects and their arrangements could be interpreted as an art  "Installation." Is that such an oddity?  Not really. First, many horrific images are indeed considered "art."   Secondly, some take the form of Conceptual ( and Installation ) art as well. Auschwitz's artifices may be seen as aesthetic entities after all.