Painting the Holocaust: Remembering Alfred Kantor and His Sketchbook

This program’s original recording transcript is below. This transcription was created automatically during a live program so may contain inaccurate transcriptions of some words.

Ari Goldstein: I'm Ari Goldstein Senior Public programs producer at the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust and it's a pleasure to welcome you to today's Program.

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Ari Goldstein: about the life and legacy of Alfred cantor which is being presented as part of Carnegie Carnegie hall voices of hope festival you're treating artists in times of oppression.

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Ari Goldstein: Kantor was an artist and Holocaust survivor who created hundreds of sketches and watercolors between 1941 and 47 leaving behind one of the most prolific artistic records of the Holocaust.

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Ari Goldstein: Were indebted to canter for documenting the almost unbelievable circumstances in which he found himself and for creating beauty amid such darkness is sketchbook and several of his works are currently on display here at the museum.

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Ari Goldstein: We have a wonderful group of panelists with us today to explore Alfred cantor's life and legacy Monica Churchill is cancerous daughter, and a retired and music teacher.

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Ari Goldstein: Suzanne adjustment is a filmmaker and writer who interviewed cancer, for her film terrorising diary and she's also a survivor of terrorism herself.

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Ari Goldstein: And doctor or a Z sophie's is professor at the teaching of Jewish civilization at georgetown university and former director of the b'nai breath klutz Nick National Museum with a specialty in art and the Holocaust.

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Ari Goldstein: To today today's program will feature a discussion between Monica Susanna and ori as well as some pre recorded reflections from reynold ruffians who wasn't able to join us live today but was cancerous colleague and good friend and as watching.

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Ari Goldstein: If you have questions for our panelists please feel free to share them in zoom Q amp a box anytime during the Program.

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Ari Goldstein: That further ado welcome Monica Susanna and ori feel free to get us started.

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Ori Soltes: terrific well i'm happy to get us started by way of a devil kind of context, because we will, in the course of the next hour or so, those of us who don't know about Alfred cantor are going to learn a lot about him and those of those of us who do will learn more about it.

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Ori Soltes: We can put him in a particular context and the context is that phrase Holocaust art which I want to begin by kind of subdividing into aspects and categories.

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Ori Soltes: Holocaust are can refer to art made during the Holocaust, it can refer to art made after the Holocaust if it's made after the Holocaust.

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Ori Soltes: It can be art made by a survivor who became an artist, or it can be made by a family member most typically a child of a Holocaust survivor.

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Ori Soltes: Who is drawn inevitably to address that kind of topic for as particularly begins to emerge in by the 80s and 90s.

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Ori Soltes: Jewish artists who might not have had any direct connection to the Holocaust, but find themselves inevitably drawn by a sense of responsibility to address it, and finally non Jewish artists, particularly German and Austrian non Jews.

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Ori Soltes: Who from the opposite side of the fence feel obliged to make some kind of an address, but during the Holocaust, you have.

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Ori Soltes: Individuals who managed to make art and that art can be done by professionals and professionals, it can be art that reflects.

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Ori Soltes: Professional training or art that has nothing to do with professional training so, for example, i'm showing you here one among.

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Ori Soltes: Hundreds and thousands of paintings and drawings done by children at terrorists in a terrorist you stopped concentration camp.

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Ori Soltes: That were intended by the teachers who had the children doing this art.

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Ori Soltes: Who were paradoxically permitted to allow the children to do this, art by their Nazi overlords because the Nazi view was Okay, we can keep them calm this way.

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Ori Soltes: To be children and sometimes the art reflects very directly what one can imagine what's going on in the camps, but if you look at this it's something that.

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Ori Soltes: A child anywhere could have drawn with the landscape anywhere you wouldn't know if you didn't know that came from terrorists, if you have adult artists in this case.

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Ori Soltes: Powerful House who, if you look carefully, this is a drawing that shows a long parade of individuals being marched in the snow to get to the front gate of the terrorists in concentration camp.

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Ori Soltes: So has his intention is to create a record of what was going on, and this is the sort of thing that would not have been.

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Ori Soltes: Particularly permitted by the Nazis, so he would have had to do it, as it were.

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Ori Soltes: in secret and less they find out, and occasionally you have an artist and this one is not from Tennessee this is Felix new spam.

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Ori Soltes: Who offers us a kind of record of what is going on, who was clearly very formally professionally trained.

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Ori Soltes: And if you look at Felix no no sounds art earlier on he's a very proud aspiring artist.

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Ori Soltes: This self portrait done while he's on the run still in Belgium from the Nazis gives us an image of an individual who looks like he's literally been cornered perhaps.

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Ori Soltes: by a policeman by the SS let's see your identity card, I want to make sure you're wearing the yellow Star and so he's showing the yellow Star and look at the expression on his face.

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Ori Soltes: So when we turn to someone like Alfred cantor we're turning to someone who actually in a sense, covers all of this territory.

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Ori Soltes: He made art during the Holocaust, he continues to make art about the Holocaust after the Holocaust.

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Ori Soltes: He was professionally trained and his skill set is high, as is evident, even from this first blast without which i'll say a few more in a moment.

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Ori Soltes: A few words more in a moment, but he's also primarily doing it to be a witness, not because he wants to be an artist it's not about me he would write later on it's about what was going on, and in particular.

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Ori Soltes: Given the visit to the Red Cross to terrorists in in 1944 anticipating which the Nazis bessie the whole place up to make it pretty.

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Ori Soltes: To make it look good to make it sound, but to like make it smell good.

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Ori Soltes: So, fortunately, for the Nazis, then International Red Cross didn't have good eyesight didn't hear well it didn't smell well anyway, so they walked away thinking I Yes indeed, this is a kind of spa for the Jews who hit their loves.

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Ori Soltes: cantor was determined that people understand what was really going on there Freddie cancer was born in Prague in 1923.

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Ori Soltes: And in fact he entered in an art school for advertising or 1941 it was a two year program he was thrown out after a year because he was Jewish and shortly thereafter, he was sent to Theresienstadt and.

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Ori Soltes: As I mentioned taryn today's instances where the Red Cross showed up, it was where over the course of four or five years 140,000 Jews were incarcerated.

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Ori Soltes: About 90,000 of them on the way to being sent outfits where most of them perished.

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Ori Soltes: Among them 15,000 children anywhere between 100 or 1000 of those survive, depending upon whose numbers you believe and and it.

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Ori Soltes: Oddly it was a place where Jews could make music and could make art, because, as I said, it was part of the Nazi plan for kind of keeping them calm and anyway they're on the way to Auschwitz anyhow.

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Ori Soltes: He Freddie captor in 1944 was removed outfits and astonishingly.

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Ori Soltes: did not perish there, he was working in the sick Ward where the physician provided him actually with some painting stuff so it was able actually to continue to make.

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Ori Soltes: images, although it was more dangerous there, so what you're looking at here, in fact, is the main entrance, as you can see, of Birkenau Auschwitz, to the camp.

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Ori Soltes: And by 19 late 1944 he was shifted to outside, which was a kind of an adjunct to the sachsenhausen concentration camp where he continued, but even more.

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Ori Soltes: secretly to make images to witness things when he left Harrison, most of the work he did he left behind with a friend.

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Ori Soltes: And at the end of the war, he was able to go back to today's and I can be precise, from him Thank you April 18 1945.

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Ori Soltes: And then he went to Prague, then he ended up coming to the United States by 1947 he served in the US army.

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Ori Soltes: and eventually opened up an advertising business in New York City, but then found the hurly burly of the city not something that he was comfortable with so moved up to me, which is where he spent the rest of his life.

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Ori Soltes: By 1971 mcgraw hill published what was called the Book of Alfred cantor.

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Ori Soltes: And in it, there are 127 sketches and paintings So you see one, you can see hospital last bunking barracks, these are all Freddie cancerous.

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Ori Soltes: Labels not mine and not mcgraw hill's is for disqualified prisoners weekend to death toilets are behind the dead corpses right here i'm just showing a handful.

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Ori Soltes: Serving dinner means a few minutes rest, as you get to rest, just a few minutes while you're eating from the slave Labor and which are otherwise engaged.

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Ori Soltes: Punishment theft of suit suit and you can see the punishment is being administered by those put in charge by the Nazis of this kitchen and not the Nazis themselves, one of the.

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Ori Soltes: thumbprints of Nazi operations was to engage others in doing the work for them suicide she went into the fence or she hit the wire.

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Ori Soltes: Not as he said, a common view and outfits and here you see actually as it started to shape up in the pages of a book and I call your attention to this particular image because it's an image of Mengele.

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Ori Soltes: The notorious physician whom.

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Ori Soltes: cantor and encountered at Auschwitz, and of course he not only managed to do stuff during the war, but after the war he to record his memories and he said stuff that was destroyed, I remembered once I drew it or painted it so clearly was easy to do again.

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Ori Soltes: And here you're seeing a rough first a shaping of the book that ultimately became the Book of Alfred character published by mcgraw Hill in 1971.

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Ori Soltes: affording ongoing witness and ongoing genius and ongoing brilliance.

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Ori Soltes: And with that I want to introduce zuzana juice man use man who is going to offer some reflections on interviewing Freddie and then we'll get to see some nine minutes of a video clip from the work she did called to its entirety Susana.

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Zuzana Justman: Thank you or I met Alfred cantor or Freddie as I called him a little more than 30 years ago when I traveled to Yarmouth name to film him for my film terrorising diary.

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Zuzana Justman: I was taking a chance to film someone without meeting him, first, I said I had always done before this done, I had no choice we were on a tight schedule and I could not go to Yarmouth twice, but my decision to include Freddie in the film was richly rewarded his contribution was invaluable.

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Zuzana Justman: Freddie had told me on the phone that his house was hard to find and suggested that we meet at a gas station.

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Zuzana Justman: flowed from the moment he emerged from his car wearing shorts and and welcoming smile, I was eager to know him.

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Zuzana Justman: He invited me and our small crew to come to his house for coffee and cake and to meet his wife and his daughter Monica hulu will meet later.

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Zuzana Justman: Right after me I think Freddie and I both grew up in Prague, we had similar backgrounds, we knew some of the same people, I think that we both soon felt at ease.

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Zuzana Justman: Labor that day Freddie told me that he has lived in New York City, where he had a job in the art department of an advertising agency, as already had just told you.

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Zuzana Justman: But the stress of working on Madison avenue became too much for him and he and he decided to move to maine to join Monica who is already living there.

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Zuzana Justman: Freddie was much happier and more relaxed in Yarmouth he became known for his depictions of local houses landscapes and portraits of people in the town.

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Zuzana Justman: As far as role in my film Freddie was a perfect interview subject he was able to bring tears in alive by describing the living conditions in various incidents in vivid detail.

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Zuzana Justman: English was not his first language, but he was the most articulate with us sometimes have a screening of the film members of the audience would ask if ready was reading from maritain text he certainly was not, but he always expressed himself in perfect sentences.

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Zuzana Justman: freddie's weren't wartime drawings played a most important part in my films when making a film about the Holocaust.

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Zuzana Justman: It is extremely difficult and often impossible to find visual documentation, I was fortunate to be able to use for these drawings of terrorists in Auschwitz ensure I tied it the last camp, he was in as visual evidence into of my phones and.

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Zuzana Justman: The clips from my from the film that we're seeing in this program we're prepared for the opening of the exhibit Alfred cantor and artists diary of the Holocaust in.

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Zuzana Justman: The exhibit was organized by the Jewish community and sponsored by the evil Institute for Jewish research and took place at the Center for Jewish history.

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Zuzana Justman: I will always be grateful that I had an opportunity to know Freddie he was not just a wonderful artist, but an extraordinary man.

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Zuzana Justman: And he had a strong sense of obligation to document what we had lived through when he said, we all have been there had the urge to tell the world we felt a responsibility to talk about it, he spoke for all of us.

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Zuzana Justman: Before we show the clips, I would like to point out that, even though Freddie mentions the contrast in the life of the cam.

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Zuzana Justman: and his descriptions of the coffee house and talk of the privilege prisoners he presents rather a rosy picture for those who are not familiar with the history of terrorism, he may.

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Zuzana Justman: unwittingly contribute to the myth of the model gatto his descriptions are valid.

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Zuzana Justman: But in the film they're balanced by the accounts of nine other witnesses who fill in a more complete version of terrorism, a dreadfully overcrowded place where approximately 33,000 people died of anger and disease.

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Thank you.

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I had a need right then in there to sketch to retain this impression that I had hot and cold death and life.

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And anybody who's studied terrorising they'll find it by far the most bizarre of camps.

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Also, for the reason that privileged people were sent there and among them great scientists and literary figures playwrights artists, I think that fact has been well known by now.

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it's first.

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I think, after they get to the place Thursday English take Nova from the general population.

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prepared for strictly Jewish settlement, the streets and the buildings had names letters and numbers.

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So a few would compare to Manhattan starting this first street going North second, third, fourth, fifth be, at the same integrity and of course there's he was only five eighth of a mile long, so you have Q street seven be three two software wow even a child could find its way.

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But then, a little later on in Tennessee being prepared for this international condition and was being beautified in a Potemkin style.

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That means for us for sale for sale on buildings and coffee shops and music pavilions to make an impression to 13 as a spa then it's three names were changed to actual names like hamburger barracks and Magdeburg barracks and the rat how stress the meaning of City Hall street.

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To give a fake impression of terrorism being a viable town.

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This much we understood even then.

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When the big fake of the of the beautification of tears Ian really got into full swing, I had already left for our streets.

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That little Green Card is a ticket to the tennessean CAFE was that ticket you could go I think once every two months and partake for two hours to jazz music and have a cup of coffee being transported into the world of fantasy, it was quite Nice on the stage of it gets a swingers.

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Young group imitating in style benny Goodman or whatever, for me it meant two hours of bliss Jews from all over Nazi occupied Europe.

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The cream of the crop seem to have found itself interesting, of course, there are other places, as I heard like westerbork in Holland and so on, but terrorism was a unique place in that respect this macabre situation.

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down a concerto and.

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A roof top but one night and the transport to death, the next day, and the only way to explain it to tell future generations about this strange world was to draw it.

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This is a transport of Jews being loaded.

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For an unknown destination, we all saw it at the time that was there will be leaving Tenzin and probably the new destination will not be anything like terrorism, it was still be safe and we sort of loud ourselves into a false sense of security again that.

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They wouldn't, let us die i'm sure there will be monetarist and old people will die, but by and large, the young ones will survive it having no idea that where they shipped us and here's the train on the way to it will be a true concentration camp.

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The particular transport, I was a member of the one that got to Auschwitz had a privileged position at first it was called to Tennessee and transport among old hands at Auschwitz.

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who had a five hour slot and we had it was said that we are privileged to be had been privileged by ice man himself to be the terrorism camp meaning.

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Our hair wasn't shown at the time, we could West civilian clothing, although there was an ex was red paint marked on our backs and, above all, women and children and men could stay in the same camp that in house, which was unheard of at the man's camps or women's camp.

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And our tears in Camp to soho testing camp was a family camp and then again lawless into a false sense of security, although all timers of Auschwitz had told us that we won't survive here very long.

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it's the plan destruction of the Jews, that the Germans had in mind the Pooh Pooh the idea and said well why would they leave women and men together and allow for some small amenities if they had said sisters ideas and we just didn't want to believe it.

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She wasn't a woman's barracks cross the road and I had asked for how you could go to the woman's barracks asked the guard was 10 it was a Jewish card for gay.

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gay gate and asked for a specific person whom you wanted to speak to So if I would be called out and we would meet on the street.

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We looked at each other, we looked like scarecrows, although we didn't have prisoner closing and I said before, this terrorism transport was privileged civilian clothing it wasn't our own clothing, we have been dished out.

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All kinds of ill fitting garments so we've also looked like i'm like scarecrows and sort of laughed a little pea look.

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And I can find it to her, all of a sudden my dream at fled it wouldn't be as Nice as interesting because we lived in ugly barracks and there were rumors that that trying to gas us I just related on and depressed her and she shot back at me.

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get hold of yourself I should stop feeling sorry for myself.

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And shook me up a little bit.

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And I often thought of a vine those turns I had never known her like that so stern and so ably qualified to help another person.

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I had just been picked for transport out of Auschwitz tells me young man was scheduled to leave we didn't know at that time that it's going to be short sighted.

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But we just knew that we would be leaving our switz, in other words that we had been picked to survive and Eva had been picked to die.

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And we had enough time about a day to say goodbye, and I felt kind of strange that I am believing are here and I couldn't accept the fact that a few days from that moment on, should die.

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In addition to memories on a regular happy relationship, they also memories of a very strong and unusual person.

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That was.

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on the night of March 819 44 all but 37 inmates of this September transport went to the gas chambers.

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Attempts at an uprising had failed.

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I think it started in terrorism, I had an urge to show these contrasts to tell people what it really meant and I thought, if I drew it as I perceived it as I felt it.

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Was the tragic and the good page by page juxtaposed that perhaps people, later on, who will be asking what people might not be asking, but he all who've been there, I think, had the urge to tell the world because the responsibility to talk about it so drawing was the logical way out.

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Ari Goldstein: Thank you for watching those clips and now we'll hear some reflections from freddie's daughter Monica Churchill.

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Ari Goldstein: hi.

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Monica Churchill: i'm just get this.

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Monica Churchill: i've been asked to talk a little bit about what it was like to be Freddie cantor's daughter my childhood was like.

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Monica Churchill: What I can say right from the start, is, I feel very fortunate that I think I had a wonderful childhood, I had an amazing father, he was creative he was funny he was playful.

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Monica Churchill: He would create games, for me, he would make toys for me he built me a plate kitchen a doll house and he was just incredibly playful and had a great sense of humor.

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Monica Churchill: I can't complain at all about the times we shared we did bike riding together, I think the biggest thing was music my dad was a piano pianist I would hear him playing piano when I was in bed at night, and I wanted to play those pieces that he played.

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Monica Churchill: and actually eventually he became he was my piano teacher he took me to a piano teacher in the neighborhood one day first lesson, he said now i'm going to do this myself so from then on, he was my piano teacher and my piano lessons were not like other piano lessons, they were fun.

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Monica Churchill: I got away with a lot of things that I probably shouldn't have and paid for it later when I didn't learn notes and theories, I should have but I had a good time and he instilled a love of music for me that lasted my whole life, it became my career actually later on.

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Monica Churchill: We played duets we did all kinds of things and that he actually went on, when my daughter was my kids were born my daughter also had a musical gift and did the same things with her.

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Monica Churchill: Other than that, in my what I can say is, I feel kind of badly about I found out much later, of course, that my brother who's seven years older than I am did not have the same type of childhood.

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Monica Churchill: Because when he was born, it was shortly after the war, my father was suffering from ptsd and some major anxieties.

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Monica Churchill: And so there was no way he could give that kind of attention to my brother, and I know my brother suffered for that in his early childhood years also, of course I didn't know anything about that till I was much, much older.

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Monica Churchill: I think or did here I knew when I became older that my dad made a very conscious effort to shield me from what his past was like he didn't want any of his past experiences to affect my childhood and he made a conscious effort so that that wouldn't happen.

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Monica Churchill: I didn't realize that, of course, until I was much, much older and actually didn't know anything about his experiences at all until the book was published and.

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Monica Churchill: That was probably junior high school age by that time and I read the introduction and also seeing Suzanne has film those that's where I really learned most of what his experiences were like I had no idea before that he didn't share that.

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Monica Churchill: My mother was in terrorism and my grandmother was a terrorism that was what they they were only in that one camp my mother did talk about it a lot she talked a lot about potatoes and potatoes skins.

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Monica Churchill: She told us that, if the Nazis knew how nutritious potato skins where they would not have been giving them potato skins.

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Monica Churchill: that she talked more about her experiences and terrorism, but my dad did not share anything about his experiences and once I learned something about them, I didn't want to ask, because I was afraid of upsetting him so.

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Monica Churchill: So I didn't really know anything until I became a lot older and as a child growing up yeah The only other thing that bothered me a bit when I was younger growing up in a Jewish neighborhood in Queens.

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Monica Churchill: I didn't know what I was.

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Monica Churchill: I think I thought I was Jewish but I knew nothing about the history of Judaism I didn't know about holidays, most of my friends were Jewish and I went to school in the Jewish holidays I didn't know any different.

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Monica Churchill: I didn't have any religion and I didn't know what God was, I had a liberal friend next door jeannie mcpartlin she was Catholic.

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Monica Churchill: And she was talking about God and I said well what's guard, I thought she said guard because she said, God was somebody.

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Monica Churchill: That looked after you and I had no idea and her mother overheard the conversation, and she was appalled that I didn't know what God was.

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Monica Churchill: So when I went home, I asked my dad what's God and he said well it's a little voice inside of you that tells you right from wrong it's like it's your conscious.

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Monica Churchill: conscience basically and that's how he explained it to me, I was brought up that's what I was brought up believing in so.

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Monica Churchill: It was a little odd, and the only other thing that I.

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Monica Churchill: felt badly about when I was young, is i'd see my friends who had two sets of grandparents and they had cousins and they had aunts and uncles and.

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Monica Churchill: big family gatherings and we just had the four of us, and my grandmother five of us and I kind of felt like I was missing out and I didn't really know why.

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Monica Churchill: And back to my dad who I thought was a fabulous wonderful father.

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Monica Churchill: very mild mannered always upbeat I can only remember one I remember one incident.

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Monica Churchill: which brought back that experience his past experience when my son was seven he got a gift from his paternal grandparents, it was a birthday gift.

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Monica Churchill: I think it was a water gun, in the shape of a machine gun and he brought that into the House, he was excited he just came back from the visit with his grandparents and my father just blew up.

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Monica Churchill: i'd never seen that before he grabbed it He threw it in the trash and he said what is his family, come to that, we have things like this in the House.

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Monica Churchill: My son was astounded he just had no idea what happened and I immediately knew I knew exactly what what was going on there, but other than that he did not.

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Monica Churchill: I don't remember any kind of anger outbursts I think he really.

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Monica Churchill: He didn't want to upset me he didn't want to upset anybody and and when he ever was asked questions about his experiences.

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Monica Churchill: I don't think he really sugar coated sugar coated them, but he didn't want to upset people and he didn't want people to feel sorry for him so.

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Monica Churchill: He was pretty pretty amazing guy and I have to say my mother was very, very supportive of him, and it was her determination really that helped him get through the bad times so.

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Monica Churchill: Anyway, I think now we'd like to turn your attention to reynold ruffians, who was a very, very close family friend a colleague of my dad's friends that go way way back, and he has.

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Monica Churchill: Some reflections that he's going to share on video, so I guess we'll turn to that.

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What made the break between.

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The show me your work with and and and a good friend.

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Of fairies visited before and.

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One of the things it was most interesting I guess was when.

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We visited back and forth quite quite often, but our first thanksgiving together.

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When Fred and anger, his wife.

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came to the House and.

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It was in in in my family and Jones to make thanksgiving dinner something very special and.

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and read and anger.

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or unfamiliar with with with the habit or the tradition, I guess.

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And so, in good question everything they pointed out, things that they wonder about to kind of research and and and I.

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came.

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I my dad used to made a very make a very.

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fancy table, I mean it was not expensive, we would, but we had special fruit and thanks to me, I mean the best apples and and yeah I think that sorted and he made a big centerpiece.

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At dinner for dinner and anger made comments there and to it, which has.

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Raised one and.

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So we predict fairly often I guess I don't I can't count the times, but please.

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Having a thanksgiving dinner was.

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fairly well when once a year, when he has.

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Two kids.

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When I asked them what.

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Their opinion of of Freddie what they thought they would light up, I mean not even now they do, they only have closing source of him, he had.

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a wonderful open personalities.

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Never I can't remember either complaining about anything I mean he would notice things that seem to be screwy and out of order, but it did it was never aligned whine.

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or complain, it would just be that something could be that.

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It was incredible because I didn't realize.

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the depth of is.

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The heart of.

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I knew.

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What they were to smarter.

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But I didn't know how close in he was to it.

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Except on occasion, he would tell us stories of.

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What would happen.

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In the camps and.

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and

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But he would do it.

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Only those things that he thought.

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or funny or still so ridiculous that he pointed out.

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The heart.

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sense of.

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Design spatial impressions.

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That he created just a genius he could.

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You could.

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Show attitude.

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In a sketch and and and and.

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And and a sense of the architecture and and the way he used light and dark.

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Just so full of me and and.

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I was.

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A recent look just really impressed me with with.

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What a fine artist, he was the work he did.

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here or there are things we will move boastfully with were drawings of buildings homes people tongues and and and.

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Nothing that I saw that he did he reflected his his past experiences.

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Ari Goldstein: That was a brief clip of an interview with reynold conducted last week, the full interview is available if you're interested at a link in the chat and now will turn to a discussion to us.

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Ori Soltes: So this is a.

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Ori Soltes: quite extraordinary, and it is a privileged for me to be able to talk briefly with both Monica and Susanna into from obviously brings a different world.

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Ori Soltes: To this world of Freddie cantor and i'll start out Monica by asking you, if I may, if you can tease out a little bit further, because you talked very eloquently.

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Ori Soltes: about being completely unaware of your father's experience until about junior high school when the book came out and i'm just curious about.

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Ori Soltes: How it how that affected it did that affect you how did it change anything for you.

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Ori Soltes: Once that awareness set in.

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Monica Churchill: No really didn't.

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Monica Churchill: I had you know it was so late already my childhood was wonderful I mean I I was feeling badly about it, but it didn't really change anything.

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Ori Soltes: mm hmm and and how about oh why'd you been aware of your mom's experience up to that point or is were you aware of neither of their.

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Monica Churchill: Now my mother's yeah my mother talked about her experiences, and I can remember, I was probably eight years old, and she mentioned something about prison camp.

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Monica Churchill: And I said, why were you in prison, what did you do, and he said Well, no, we didn't do anything she kind of went into this little explanation, but I was really too young to really understand what she was talking about, but she did she talked about stories from from terrorism.

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Monica Churchill: Quite often, and about the lack of food and mostly the potato stories.

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Ori Soltes: which I, like the potato tour stories told, and I imagine.

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Ori Soltes: Their their experiences in some respects were radically different simply in the fact that he went on to Auschwitz remarkably survive that experience lucked out in a sense, to be moved on to somewhere else to outsider and.

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Ori Soltes: survived.

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Ori Soltes: All that it was just a whole different set of experiences, aside from the fact that no to people's experiences, where the same i'm going to end up at that point, but I don't want to get there yet, I want to ask Susanna next question.

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Ori Soltes: Which is also a simple kind of autobiographical one what caused you to turn to film as a medium of expressing your and others Holocaust experience.

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Zuzana Justman: Well, I i've always loved film, even as a child, of course, during the war Jews were not allowed to go to.

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Zuzana Justman: The cinema so after the war, I still lived in Prague for and for three years, I probably saw every film that was shown in Prague.

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Zuzana Justman: But it was only much later in my life that I realized, I could actually make films, I was fascinated by documentaries and sometimes when I was watching a film, I thought I could do that, and at that time it was still under Communism now Czechoslovakia every stroke Communist country.

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Zuzana Justman: People didn't know did not all over the world did not know much about terrorism at that time I now they've been a number of books and films, but at that time much was not know.

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Zuzana Justman: And I thought that would be a good topic and just at that time my mother called me from Prague to tell me that for the first time, the Communist government would permit every Union of tears in children wow and I thought.

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Zuzana Justman: I thought that's a sign of fate and also would be good way of to start and I called a friend who worked at PBS and she put me, together with.

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Zuzana Justman: Well, with someone who was slightly more experience as a filmmaker than I was, and that was the start and I was very lucky that in Czechoslovakia, I was still Czechoslovakia that time.

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Zuzana Justman: I worked with the best staff with the wonderful professionals who my continue to work with after that made me look good.

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Ori Soltes: wow Monica I have another question for you um I love this question because it's a curveball but I know that you're wearing a catcher's mitt so i'm not worried about it when you see your father's art, what do you see.

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Ori Soltes: How do you suppose, this is speculative on your part, so i'm making your work, for your dollar here, how do you suppose what and how you see his work distinguishes you from others like me when I look at his work or Susanna when she looks at its work or anyone else.

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Monica Churchill: I don't know I.

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Monica Churchill: I I actually saw his book, when I was little it was sitting up on the shelf and I took it down and I started looking at the pages.

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Monica Churchill: And I was just impressed with the colors and the fact that I knew my dad had drawn them, I had no idea what it meant no idea what it was, but I thought well this, these are really good pictures but that's as far as that when that's when I was probably about eight.

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yeah.

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Monica Churchill: After I mean looking at them now.

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Monica Churchill: I don't know it's a tough question because I I now look at them and think he really experienced this this was yeah it's painful.

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Ori Soltes: Exactly and it's interesting because well two things what you just said comes back to one of the things I said at the outset, which is you know Holocaust art as witnessing, as opposed to Holocaust art as art.

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Ori Soltes: So as an eight year old your response was to this stuff as art, because you had no context, then later on, you get the context and the witnessing and you realize the pain.

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Ori Soltes: But then he chose not ever to put himself in the work but rather for people to see what others were experiencing rather than to make it about himself, so I guess you would have to do the translation, in a sense, to his experience um.

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Ori Soltes: This leads me to a question for Zanna about your thoughts regarding the arts, particularly visual arts.

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Ori Soltes: That were somehow produced like this work was during the Holocaust as a source of witnessing as a source of commentary, perhaps even a protest any thoughts about that, because you yourself were there and i'm going to get to that too in a bit well.

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Zuzana Justman: Sometimes the art and music that was produced in terrorising is described as a form of resistance you use the word protest but.

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Zuzana Justman: Some books and essays have been written about it as a form of resistance usually the phrase triumph of the spirit is used.

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Zuzana Justman: Which profoundly dislike because I do not think that was a form of resistance this were artists and musicians, who did what they always do, did they they practice their art and it was also as Freddie points out in one of the excerpt it helped them survive, it was a coping mechanism.

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Zuzana Justman: But I don't feel that was a form of protest right let's say a few words about the children's drawings.

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Ori Soltes: If that was my next question go for it.

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well.

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Zuzana Justman: Most of the children's drawings that have been exhibited in Prague and around the world were were made under the guidance of freedom dicker Brandeis the bauhaus artists.

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Zuzana Justman: Yes, who felt who saw are some who saw art as therapy and she told the children, mostly really she taught told the girls she taught the girls that she told them to draw.

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Zuzana Justman: Beautiful flowers and trees and animals to draw beautiful things to escape from the harsh reality of terrorism.

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Zuzana Justman: On the other hand, there was a while ago scuba who was.

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Zuzana Justman: at the age of 12 produced.

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Zuzana Justman: 100 drawings.

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Zuzana Justman: Yes, that were hidden when she went to Auschwitz and survived that were exhibited all over the world that were documents like freddie's documents.

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Zuzana Justman: And she appears in my film voice of the children and she says when she arrived in terrorising she drew drew a picture of a pretty girl in a pretty dress and send it to her father and he said no draw what you see, so there are these two schools of thought about the children's right.

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Ori Soltes: yeah and I think, as you look as one looks through all of those drawings you exactly see those two schools representative and if you compare them or hook them up with the poetry.

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Ori Soltes: You also get an MRI enriched sense of that duality of sometimes it's reflecting the reality that wasn't happening.

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Ori Soltes: and other times it's very emphatic you know beautiful pictures of butterflies a beautiful poem about a butterfly but the last line of that most famous poem the butterfly is you know.

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Ori Soltes: Last butterfly because there aren't butterflies here in the ghetto, so it doesn't take much reading between the lines to sense what that's about.

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Zuzana Justman: Unfortunately, those poems losing light in training internship.

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Zuzana Justman: course, of course, some of these children are so gifted.

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Ori Soltes: yeah yeah Monica a question again for you.

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Ori Soltes: How do you suppose it's again a speculation question for you.

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Ori Soltes: How might your sense of your father and his experiences have been different if he hadn't been a visual artist and I, and I want to add a second question I, but you may already have answered it earlier when you spoke.

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Ori Soltes: Once that book came out or once you get older.

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Ori Soltes: Was there a chance to to ever talk with him about it, or were you always has attempt, because you were afraid that would upset him.

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Monica Churchill: I did not talk to him about it, I was afraid that it would upset so I didn't I just listened to what everybody else was saying, but um and if he hadn't been an artist I don't think I would have learned, all of this.

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Monica Churchill: I wasn't wanting to talk about it, he didn't want to be pitied um that wasn't his personality.

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Ori Soltes: But growing up, you are more aware of him actually.

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Ori Soltes: Art was as a musician right, yes, and that that directly affected, you because he became your your first serious piano teacher.

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Ori Soltes: yeah very, very interesting um and Susanna there's another thing you know pema levy as, as you know.

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Ori Soltes: In his last book the ground, the same mentions, he says there's i'm paraphrasing it's not an exact quote there's no such thing as Holocaust experience.

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Ori Soltes: Because no two victims had the same experience and we were talking a few moments, about a goal monique monique and I about the different experiences that her father and her mother would have had in the same place.

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Ori Soltes: So you were there as well, you make the documentary you're interviewing Freddie and others i'm just curious what's passing through your mind, you made a little bit of a reference to that in introducing the film.

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Ori Soltes: Regarding the difference between your experience and his experience, if I can put you out on a limb to answer that.

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Zuzana Justman: Well, of course, I was a child, and he was a young man, so it was vastly different interest in the biggest difference in the experience was between the young and the old.

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Zuzana Justman: Some young men many young men had jobs, especially the young men who worked in the kitchen who they were considered the aristocrats.

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Zuzana Justman: Of the camp I don't I don't know if your mom ever told you that Monica because there were two kinds of stealing in the camp, it was called choice and.

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Zuzana Justman: And one from the common property like stealing in the kitchen That was all right, but stealing from another prisoner was not.

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Zuzana Justman: So all the young men will work and not young women, the young men who worked in the kitchen stole as much food as they could, and you know interesting it was all about food as Monica said her mom talks about potatoes potatoes were very important part of our life and.

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Zuzana Justman: So the the young men were so much better off than the old people, the Jewish self government made a choice to give more food to the children and less and to take it away from the old people.

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Zuzana Justman: And the number of death that i'm I mentioned at the beginning of my introduction, was mostly the old they starved.

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Ori Soltes: Well, and of course the crowding is inconceivable I we both gave numbers and I gave the number of 140,000 but, in any given time, there were something like 70,000.

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Ori Soltes: acres habitats.

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Ori Soltes: And what had been a military barracks designed to 3000 people.

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Ori Soltes: Right, so it had to be.

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Zuzana Justman: More purpose it was extremely crowded.

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Ori Soltes: yeah.

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Zuzana Justman: And the old people, you know slept in those three way banquets and if the condition definitions for the old people a tear you know.

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Ori Soltes: Monica when you saw this documentary for the first time right, I see it, for the first time and and i'm impressed, in whatever ways i'm impressed I haven't pressed there's no question about it.

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Ori Soltes: A little things like.

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Ori Soltes: I don't know, maybe I thought freddie's voice was deeper than it turns out to be in the documentary or his hairline was different from.

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Ori Soltes: When when you see when you see him when you saw him when you see him speaking in front of the camera, what is your House, what is your, what do you think what do you feel, how do you respond.

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Monica Churchill: Well, it was really.

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Monica Churchill: really interesting, seeing that so so long ago, but um I just think he's an amazing, and now I think back and how articulate I mean, I know, says that already mentioned that, but how amazing.

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Monica Churchill: That he could speak so clearly and he when he went to schools and spoke to you know students was always like that he was so clear and sounded like everything was prepared and it wasn't.

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Monica Churchill: I just think it's amazing.

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Ori Soltes: Do you know offhand and you may not but spell asked you anyway, at what point, because I know he also, as I mentioned at the beginning, he also did a lot of art about this.

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Ori Soltes: Afterwards, because, as he put it, you know I could once i'm once I did a drawing then it was fixed in my head so, even if it was destroyed.

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Ori Soltes: And you know, he was fortunate that when he left territory and and the transport he left his drawings, with the friend who apparently survived the drawing survive when he went back a territory and afterwards, he was able to reclaim them.

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Ori Soltes: But he did a lot of stuff afterwards still determined to witness to remember to have that record, do you have a sense of when he decided to to make it more public to find a publisher he ends up with mcgraw Hill and 71 that's 25 years later.

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Monica Churchill: He was not looking to have it published, I mean I think he did want to he didn't know.

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Monica Churchill: how to go about it, so it was another friend that that took it and said, we have to publish this and made the efforts to do that, but my he was not one to.

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Monica Churchill: To push himself I know he wanted it to be seen, and he wanted, you know it to be recognized, but he wasn't somebody that ever pushed for himself.

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Ori Soltes: was like.

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Ori Soltes: interesting, but he did.

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Ori Soltes: Talk about this, I mean just to schools and we did this come after the book or even before was he.

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Monica Churchill: Doing after that.

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Ori Soltes: Because that helped facilitate is being able to open up.

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Ori Soltes: which he hadn't before.

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Ori Soltes: Any last thoughts from either of us something important that I missed because I will may have that you want to add Monica or that you want to add Susanna.

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Zuzana Justman: Well i'd like to add that, when Monica told the story about how friendly get very upset when he saw his grandson gun I could add that my children never played with guns when way with guns.

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Ori Soltes: You know it's interesting, I have two sons and we would not let them have guns.

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Ori Soltes: And I noticed, you know they they pick up a stick it's a gun it's like it's in the testosterone it's in the DNA you can't fight it.

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Ori Soltes: So when, at a certain point my mother in law brought home cowboy guns for them, I finally said all right all right all right.

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Ori Soltes: And I remember very interestingly, they went out for Halloween when they were probably I want to say.

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Ori Soltes: five and seven, and they were dressed in fatigues army guns, the whole thing, but they were very emphatic of mentioning to people at doors but but we that's not really ups, we would never shoot anybody.

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Ori Soltes: They liked the idea of being dressed up as soldiers, but they would never they would say it repeatedly we never really wanted to do that.

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Ori Soltes: But I could I wouldn't win, yes, Monaco and you said that I pictured Freddie picturing you know the SS officers, the with it with their machine guns and i'm sure that was the gut reaction that caused him to respond, as you said, one time that you remember his being angry.

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Ori Soltes: yeah that was it ah extraordinary.

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Ori Soltes: The book of Alfred can counter I thank you so very much both of you.

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Ori Soltes: And I think ra for hosting us and organizing this and putting it all together and i'm turning the microphone back to our Goldstein.

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Ari Goldstein: rate thinks i'm having a museum or a for for hosting and facilitating today and Monica and Susanna and also to reynold for sharing your own thoughts and reflections.

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Ari Goldstein: We are very privileged to have some of Alfred kendra's work currently on display at the museum.

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Ari Goldstein: Is sketch book is on display in the outfits exhibition, which is open just until May 2 so if you're in New York or the New York area, and you have a chance to come visit us we hope you will.

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Ari Goldstein: We also have some cancers work on display in rendering witness Holocaust era art as testimony and, hopefully, in the future as well, we really are indebted to.

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Ari Goldstein: To Freddie and so it's just been a privilege to learn from all of you and I know the audience feels the same way.

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Ari Goldstein: yeah and I should mention that all of our work at the museum, including some restoration work we did on cantor's portfolio.

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Ari Goldstein: And our programming is made possible through donor support, so thank you to those of you who are members of the museum or who support in other ways.

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Ari Goldstein: If you are not and you're able, we ask you to please consider supporting the museum's work, you can find information about our exhibitions the donate link and all of our upcoming programs at our website, which is in the zoom chat.

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Ari Goldstein: Once again, a big thank you to Santa Monica nori and wish everyone good afternoon.

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yeah.

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Ori Soltes: Thank you all, and thank you Freddie for leaving that legacy for us.

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is a wonderful person.