The Requiem Series

Each print 9.5" x 14.5"​

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My upbringing was unusual as I was raised on bedtime stories of Holocaust survival by my parents and was shaped while sitting in an air raid shelter during the Israeli Six Day War. When I heard the Verdi Requiem, the images of impending death reverberated in my head with every heavy bass line. I immediately connected this to my maternal grandmother’s tragic experience. She was snatched from her comfortable middle-class life from her synagogue during Kol Nidre Services (the evening services before Yom Kippur when God makes the final judgments over life and death).  

 

She was sent to Mauthausen, a work camp in Austria, where she was literally worked to death, malnourished, and fell ill. She was then sent to the Auschwitz crematoria. This seven movement Requiem precisely sets up her story of losing her family, her freedom and finally her very soul to this inhuman torture, and all because she was a Jew.

 

This series was created specifically as a minimalist narrative with a stark retelling.