Eyewitnesses to hell: Art by Holocaust survivors goes on show
Artists who survived the Holocaust were today unveiling paintings that record their experiences of Nazi persecution.
The works feature in an exhibition opening to the public tomorrow at the Imperial War Museum in London.
Roman Halter and Edith Birkin, who endured life in Auschwitz, and Alicia Melamed Adams, another concentration camp survivor, are among the artists who settled in Britain after the war and are represented in the show.
Ghosts: A Camp Of Twins - Auschwitz, by Edith Birkin, can be seen at the Imperial War Museum
Mr Halter, 81, said: 'It's a very important exhibition and it's good that it's going to be on for a long time.
'The artwork that was done inside the camps and the ghettoes didn't survive, but people painted immediately after the war when their memories were really fresh.'
His series of seven paintings, Memories Of The Holocaust, has been bought by the museum in Lambeth, South London.
It was not painted until the Seventies. He said he had 'no voice' to paint until then.
Mr Halter added: 'I made a promise to my grandfather when he was dying of starvation. He called me over and said, "When you survive, speak clearly, tell the world that we Jews are being murdered."'
The exhibition, open until next August, includes works from as early as 1943, as well as much later pieces by survivors and some by contemporary artists.
