UTW 21

Lebensraum  - Lody (the Eskimo ice-cream drawing, Warsaw ghetto)

Art: 1994
Media: Ink; gouache; stitching w/ waxed twine; old book cover w/ stitching
Framed, 31 H x 37 1/8 W [78.7 cm x 93.9]

The frame was a gift from the Wing Luke Asian Museum, Seattle.
I drew the wings in my studio.

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The Polish word POSTOJ is seen in a photo by the late Jewish photographer Roman Vishniac, in the book Roman Vishniac - A Vanished World, with an introduction by Elie Wiesel (pub. by Farrar, Straus, Giroux, NY, 1986). The photo is plate 28: “Licenses for members of the artel of Jewish porters.” Warsaw. 1937.

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During the 1930's Vishniac traveled through eastern and central Europe, including Germany, where he photographed Jewish life in the countryside and city alike, at great risk. A photographer could easily be considered a spy, and Vishniac took many photographs with a hidden camera. 

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A 1937 photo by Vishniac shows the licenses and papers of the artel of Jewish porters in Warsaw. Postoj in Polish means station...in the foreground of the photo (plate 28 in the paperback edition of the book) is seen a bearded man's license, which is stamped POSTOJ No. 81. His porter station then was No. 81. Porters hauled goods, some by backbreaking labor with ropes connected to a cart slung to the back and shoulders; better off porters had a horse and cart.

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The child victims portrayed in this mixed media piece were drawn from Warsaw Ghetto photos - the child at viewers left from a photo by Nazi soldier Heinz Jost [see also UTW drawings no. 7, 9, 33].

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The caption Jost jotted down for the photo stated: "On the sidewalk in a side street I saw this tiny child who could no longer pull himself upright. The passers-by didn't stop. There were too many children like this one."

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Lody means ice cream in Polish. Store signs seen in Warsaw Ghetto photos pre-date the Nazi occupation and the sealing in of the ghetto.

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I was struck, living in Seattle, with its airline and sea - shipping proximity to Alaska and Alaska’s Native American history and culture, by the incongruity of a shop sign in the Warsaw Ghetto for Eskimo brand ice-cream. When I was boy, growing up in Queens, NYC, supermarkets sold ‘Eskimo’ ice cream bars.

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Lebensraum was the (German language) Nazi term for their justification to seize neighboring lands at the onset of World War II. It means Living Room.

Nazi Germany/Austria sought "Living Room" with an expanded Germany. It’s a euphemism for their imperialistic conquest and the slave labor, theft and mass murder that followed.