oha 2013

The sanctuary of the Great synagogue on Tłomackie street, Warsaw

Art: 2013
Media: Ink, gouache, colored pencil on paper
Size, paper: 30 inches H x 24 W
Framed, 31 1/4 inches H x 35 3/8 W

Related bibliography about Jewish music & the Great ‘Tlomackie’ synagogue:  A music CD (published in 2013) Ode to David Eisenstadt [Odo do Davida Eisenstadta] by Cantor Mimi Scheffer & the Warsaw Singers, published in Berlin, pays homage to Eisenstadt, a Polish - Jewish composer murdered at the Nazi death camp at Treblinka, 1942. The album booklet includes another Segan made depiction of the interior of the Tłomackie synagogue. It is a detail from UTW 42, Shoah Dreams.

See the Under The Wings gallery pages in this website.

More info about Cantor Sheffer’s music CD.

This was my interpretative view of the interior sanctuary of the Great (aka Tłomackie) Synagogue of Warsaw. The synagogue was designed by Leandro Marconi, a Polish architect, 1834-1919.

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The Great synagogue was constructed between 1875-78. After the Nazi occupation, 1939, and creation of the ghetto as a sealed-in concentration-death camp, the synagogue was just outside the walls of the the Warsaw Ghetto. It not destroyed during the Nazi's campaign of murdering the entire 500,000 Jews who were imprisoned in the ghetto.

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After the total destruction of the ghetto during the April - May 1943 time-period historically called the Warsaw ghetto uprising, the synagogue was blown up on orders of Nazi general Juergen Stroop. May 1943: Nazi General Jürgen Stroop ordered the synagogue and its world-famous library to be blown up to celebrate their “victory" in having murdered over  500,000 Jewish prisoners.
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After the war Stroop was prosecuted and convicted of ordering the execution of captured U.S. airmen (U.S. Army Aircorps); the sentence was not carried out. Stroop was sent to Poland where he was prosecuted for crimes against humanity, convicted and hung in 1952.

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The synagogue was not rebuilt.

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The reindeer at left and some of the Hebrew letters at top were inspired by photos of Polish Jewish gravestones; photos by Monika Krajewska, pub. in her photography book Time of Stones (pub. by Interpress, Warsaw, 1982).

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The parakeet at bottom left was inspired by the artist. I have owned parakeets and cockatiels at different times of my life.

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The music at bottom right was drawn from music penned by my late maternal grandfather, Harry  Graff, born in a village outside of Bialystok, Poland, around 1881; died Englewood, New Jersey, 1968.

He was Herschl Barshewsky in the old country. While in London before he and my grandma moved to NY, he adopted the name of someone he worked for, named Graff. Harry Graff’s mother (my maternal great-grandma) Zlata Barshewsky, murdered by the Nazis, has been portrayed in 3 different Holocaust & tolerance education artworks:

  • UTW 42: Shoah Dreams (1999-2001)

  • UTW 62: Zlata Barshewsky of Bialstyok (mosaic-drawing combo, 2014); and (see Other Holocaust art – 2013

  • Zlata the Righteous of Bialystok & her son Liebl who lived in Berlin (part of The Shoah Trilogy)