In Memory of My Family, Destroyed During the Holocaust

In Memory of My Family, Destroyed During the Holocaust

The entire family of my grandmother, Ita Meirsdorf, of blessed memory, the Melman family of Nasielsk, near Warsaw, Poland, was murdered during the Holocaust. The Nazis and their perpetrators buried them in a mass grave in the town of Lukow (1943).

Through art, I wish to perpetuate their memories, among the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust.





Photograph: A paper cutting I prepared, including a collage of photographs of my family, all of whom were were murdered during the Holocaust.

Inscription: “The Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes' Remembrance Day”

The odyssey of my family has been documented by the Jewish Museum of Poland:

http://www.sztetl.org.pl/pl/article/nasielsk/16,relacje-wspomnienia/14247,anat-aderet-about-her-grandmother-ita-meirsdorf-nee-melman-born-in-nasielsk-in-1918-the-life-of-her-family-in-pultusk-their-escape-to-the-soviet-union-and-immigration-to-israel-/

אני
נצר
למשפחה
יהודית מהגולה
שתי המשפחות של הסבתות שלי, נספו כליל
בשואה. הבת שלי שואלת: אמא, נולדת
בחורבן בית שני, או בשואה? - לא
אני עונה לה, נולדתי בארץ
ואני יהודיה. ואני ישראלית ואני
חוליה בשרשרת, ואני ההמשך, הדור הבא.
וזוהי שליחות, אחרי אלפיים שנות גלות, ומה שבאמת
חשוב זה שלמרות הכל
אני בכל זאת
פה

Picture is courtesy of Anat Aderet, who published this poem on her blog in the shape of a Star of David.
http://walla.ibooks.co.il/blog/ViewEntry.asp?EntryId=1234468&passok=ok&r=1

Here is zeevveez translation:

I am a descendent of a Jewish family who lived in the Diaspora. Both my grandmothers were exterminated in the Holocaust. My daughter asks: "Mother, were you born during the destruction of the second Temple, or during the Holocaust?"
“No”, I answer her. “I was born in Israel. I am a Jewess. I am an Israeli. I am a link in a chain, and I am the continuation, the next generation. And it is a mission, after 2,000 years of exile. What really matters is that, after all, I am here, somehow.”

The frame is my addition. It was made via Photoshop.. zeevveez introduced the yellow color to evoke the Yellow Badge.
Posted by zeevveez at:
http://star-of-david.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html#6189546413456944020

In order to preserve the Yiddish culture in which they lived, I work at the Rena Costa Center for Yiddish Studies at Bar Ilan University.
http://www.biu.ac.il/js/li/yiddish