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  Susan Weinberg
  Studio 409




  

liminachal@gmail.com
 





           
      
           













  


















       


  A Hole In Time          

 
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My grandfather came from Radom, Poland.   He was the only one in his family to immigrate to the United States. A large family remained behind only to perish in the Holocaust.  While developing a website for those researching their Jewish heritage from Radom, I obtained a film of the former Jewish community.

It was a homemade film dating back to   1937, done on the occasion of two family weddings.  It captured a cross-section of the Jewish community.  Very traditionally garbed men were filmed as well as many far more secular in appearance, probably not much different than my family then in the United States. It represents a happy time, everyone is waving at the camera and holding their children up.  Little could they have imagined the horrors that would confront the community just five years later when most of those filmed died in the Holocaust.

I took about 75 stills from the film and posted them on the website.  Juxtaposed next to each other, I was struck with the way they captured the community in a moment in time and decided to paint the community via this film.
                         
Because I wanted the feeling of snapshots I decided to keep my paintings to a small size of 12" x 12".   The paintings are done on wood panels and are painted in the style of a pinhole camera with muted colors and a slightly shaded border around the edges.  Hence the name, "A Hole in Time".  I wanted to provide a glimpse of what life looked like in the Jewish community of that time and the diversity within this community.

Soon after I began this series I connected with a woman who lives in my community who is a survivor of Radom.  The war broke out when she was 15 so her memories are those of a school girl.  Now in her late 90s she shared her recollections with me of the once vibrant Radom Jewish community that this series seeks to capture. She also shared with me her family photos from before the war and during the time of the ghetto.  They had been hidden in her brother's and her husband's shoes throughout the camps. In April 2011 we  traveled to Radom for the opening of an exhibition of my artwork and her photos and story at the Resursa Obywatelska, the Arts and Culture Center.
                

 



   
      

















































   



     




















    






















 

















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