MOTHER-SURVIVOR 

Contemporary Memories

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When I asked my mother: “How can you be so optimistic after losing your family in the Holocaust?” Her answer was: “The Evil has already happened, from now on Life should be Good”.

 

As a daughter of Holocaust Survivors Paula and Mordechai Fried, and as an Artist-Sculptor, I feel it is my obligation to present a visual message preserving the stories I have personally heard.

My Childhood ‘Fairy Tales’ were my mother’s nostalgic stories about her happy childhood and family in Czechoslovakia before WWII. Growing up I realized that most of the family members I knew from my mother’s vivid stories, didn’t survive. It haunted me with a painful feeling of loss.

 

After my mother’s passing (January 2012) I started using my art to raise interest in the Holocaust, by telling one woman’s personal story that relates to many others and is important to humanity.

I am not describing how it was there…I am expressing my mother’s journey through intuitive emotional interpretations and symbols. I chose to use humble materials, as wire mesh, rusty metal, reused and found objects to express the beauty of imperfection and the idea that everything and everyone can contribute to life. My semi abstract wire mesh figures entwined together swirling like wisps of smoke expressing close connections of people who found themselves in a space they could not escape from.

I tear wire mesh in shapes of letters, words and open wounds for families that were torn apart and as a symbol to ‘Kriah’ (tearing in Hebrew) a Jewish act of tearing one’s cloth at a funeral to express grief.

 

I brought my mother and her stories to life through the healing power of art, the same way she brought to life the memory of her lost family with endless stories. My main inspiration is the story of my mother, who was sorting clothes of the victims in Auschwitz-Birkenau at age 18, and how she came upon 8 photographs of her lost family. She was hiding the photos inside bread until liberation day.

In my works, I use copies of those 8 family photos, along with bread, old hangers, and clothes - materials that connect to my mother’s past, each memory transformed into a contemporary artwork that is memorizing those who lost their life as well as embracing survival and the creation of new life.

My mother’s personal story is intertwined with the tragedy of human history, wrapped with her optimistic spirit and hope for a better future. My goal is to evoke public awareness for next generations, while we still have Holocaust denials and Genocides around the world.