Holocaust museum display blog assignment #2

Blog assignment #2

Artifacts:

Painting- Crematorium I by Jan Komski

Passage: Night By Elie Wiesel

“Never shall I forget that smoke.

Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.

Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.” (Wiesel 34)

I was able to connect a passage from Night to this very powerful and moving artifact. I found this passage in Night to be so moving because I agreed with how Elie felt; Elie passed a crematorium and was in absolute horror of what he saw. Just seeing the innocent human beings being thrown into the crematorium was enough to make him lose faith in god. This picture is such a contrast to the language Elie uses; Elie is very horrified and disgusted in humanity while the men walking around in the crematorium doing their work, look very emotionless; like they don’t care. These men are tossing bodies into the flames nonchalantly, and seem to have completely shut off their emotions in order to throw away the lives of the innocent.

In the line “Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever” Elie is losing faith on the world around him and the people around him; basically everything. Like us, Elie cannot comprehend why such an evil act of burning piles and piles of dead bodies just to hide the Nazi’s crimes was committed. This painting by Jan Komski uses a contrast between black and white; dark and light which signifies the good of the innocent people being harmed and the darkness and evilness of those who are burning the bodies of innocent people. The black lines on the SS officer are more apparent than the ones on the dead bodies; I thought this was interesting. None of the faces of the dead bodies are facing us, and the officer is not looking at us either. This shows how shameful the act that they are committing is.

Overall, I can see the same themes of darkness and dehumanization in these two pieces of work. These passages work well together because they show opposite ends of perspective, one that shows the emotion of the SS guard, and one that shows the emotion of the witness to the hideous crimes.