Congregation Eitz Or Synagogue Newsletter - Summer 1998
"Under the Wings of G-d" By Jonathan Freedman
[Two notes by Segan, July 7, 2020: The full-page hardcopy article included a black and white reproduction of "The Muranow Street Trolley, Warsaw ghetto," which was the first drawing of the series, of 1991. An artwork Freedman wrote of, below, the artwork "Holocaust Scenes," was later re-titled, after it was completed, as "Shoah Dreams." It is UTW 42 in the wings series].
Eitz Or member Akiva Segan exhibited a selection of drawings from his "Under the Wings of G-d" Holocaust Art Education series, an artistic and educational project in-progress, at Seattle Central College's art gallery from May 11 through May 22, 1998.
The student population of Seattle Central is multi-cultural and mostly younger. They were an ideal audience, in keeping with the goal of the series to bring the lessons of the Holocaust to today's youth through art.
On May 12, in conjunction with the exhibit, Akiva presented his slide lecture on the "Under the Wings" series to the public. Eitz Or member Cynthia Gayle, who attended the lecture, thought that it demonstrated the results of prejudice and racism. Using images that spark discussion about the nature of stereotyping, his presentation was an innovative educational tool with a "non-linear approach," she said, "one that taps into us on another level." For example, Segan displayed cartoon images from pre-war Germany that stereotyped Jews. She realized later that they resembled more current American stereotypes about African-Americans.
Segan made several other presentations to SCCC classes. He discussed his work with a drawing class. He lectured to students from "Living, Death, Dying," a class with a life cycle view of humanity similar to Judaism. At this presentation he expanded his approach, showing drawings he had made of his father as death approached, as well as objects and photos from his father's life. Discussing the personalization of the death experience with students, Segan hopes, may yield educational and artistic ideas that ultimately find their way.
Most of the drawings depict people who in all likelihood perished in the Holocaust. Most were adapted from photos taken in the Warsaw ghetto or family photos. One was a drawing from the self-portrait of an artist, Felix Nussbaum, who perished at Auschwitz.
Segan chooses to draw from photos to allow the viewer to focus on a small number of individual lives, which, he believes, is easier to assimilate than six million, a concept that changes humanity to a mere (overwhelming) number. He notes, "It's hard to comprehend the enormity of a crime with so many victims."
For Segan, the Holocaust represents the worst-case result of racial violence and hatred. Imparting this teaching to young people is a goal of the "Under the Wings" foundation.
Most of the exhibit drawings are black India ink on drawing paper. Some employ mixed media, such as pen and ink, watercolor, gouache (a more opaque watercolor), and colored pencil. Occasional non-standard media such as twine, stitching, melted wax and brick dust are also used.
As I pondered Segan's exhibit, I was drawn to a mesmerizing work, "Holocaust scenes,' which lay on a table in the gallery, rather than being wall hung. It is collage-like, containing numerous people, a carriage, a wedding ring, a tower from the Warsaw ghetto, two pre-war Polish synagogues and other objects from Warsaw's Jewish ghetto. The images are unrelated to each other, casually (or strategically) oriented in different directions, yet their totality has a greater impact than would each individually. Segan is not done with it yet -- it remains a work in progress.
The series began in 1991, after Segan spent extended time in Eastern Europe. Upon his return, haunted by what he saw, he pored through books of photographs and art from pre-war Jewish Europe.
One day, looking at a book of photographs from the Warsaw Ghetto, he noticed the images were grainy, frozen in time. He pulled out a sheet of drawing paper and drew a picture from a photo of a street trolley in one sitting.
He drew wings on it, after feeling that the resulting image, no longer frozen like the photograph, seemed to be floating in space. This drawing became the "Muranow Street Trolley." There are three people in the image, a conductor, and two men standing on either side of him. These people, he mused, no doubt perished in the Holocaust. A project was born.
A concept grew to a series of winged Holocaust images, focused on those who perished. Segan soon learned that a Holocaust survivor named Israel Bernbaum, living in New York, had been pursuing a parallel artistic vision for many years. He made contact with Bernbaum.
He was to discover a further and uncanny synchronicity: Bernbaum* had grown up on Muranow Street, the location of the trolley that was Segan's initial inspiration.
Segan plans to complete the "Under the Wings" series in the near future and hopes eventually to tour the works nationally and overseas.
[*a post-script note by A.K. Segan, July 7, 2002: In his chapter on his painting "The Warsaw ghetto streets, 1943,' featured in his award winning children's book "My Brother's Keeper - The Holocaust through the Eyes of an Artist," Bernbaum wrote about a building wall fragment he depicted, which has writing on it stating "Ulica Karmelicka." Bernbaum: "Karmelicka was especially close to my heart. My grandparents had lived there, and so had many members of my family and many friends." Further on he writes "the photograph [a black and white photo of ghetto ruins with the wordage Ul. Karmelica visible on a piece of wrecked building wall is is reproduced in the chapter] shows what happened to Karmelicka Street. At the same time it gives us an idea what happened to the street where I had lived, Muranowska Street, and to the many other streets where my people lived for centuries." (The book was published by Putnam, NY, 1985. It won the German Award for Young People's Literature, 1990. I have a power-point class solely on selected paintings by Bernbaum from his series featured in his book; and another class in which I interweave examples of Bernbaum's paintings with Under the Wings series artworks. See the Classses list in Teaching in this website].