Watercolor of the burning of massacred Jews in the Ponary Forest by a former child partisan
Extent and Medium
overall: Height: 13.500 inches (34.29 cm) | Width: 19.500 inches (49.53 cm)
Creator(s)
- Arie Singer (Artist)
- Arie Singer (Subject)
Biographical History
Aryeh (Arie) Singer was born in Vilna, Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania), on September 26, 1930, to Zvi and Chaya Sverdlov Singer. Zvi, born in 1903, earned his living in the lumber business. Chaya was born in 1908. There were multiple Zionist organizations in Vilna and the family belonged to Elzel. Aryeh attended Beit Sefer Ivrit school. Vilna was claimed by Poland following World War I (1914-1918.) After Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, Vilna, in northeastern Poland, was occupied by Soviet forces per the German-Soviet pact which divided Poland between the two powers. Aryeh, 13, and his extended family fled to Glembokie (Glebokie), (later (Hlybokaye, Belarus), thinking it would be safer. But it also became Soviet territory and Jewish organizations and practices were abolished. On June 22, 1941, Germany attacked Soviet forces in the east and occupied the region. The German invasion was accompanied by German led killing squads, which, assisted by local Lithuanians auxiliaries, murdered thousands of Jews and Polish nationals. Aryeh and his mother Chaya were confined to the Jewish ghetto in Gle`mbokie. His father Zvi was one of the more than 5000 Jewish men shot during the massacres in the Ponary Forest in summer 1941. In the ghetto, Aryeh and his mother lived in a small apartment and had no food most of the time. There were frequent pogroms to kill more Jews. In spring 1943, Aryeh and his mother escaped the ghetto, with the help of a partisan named Fifi. They went into hiding in the Nievier Forest near Vilna and engaged in partisan activities. Aryeh’s paternal cousin, Edith Turner, and her family also escaped and lived with the partisans. During the liquidation of the Glembokie ghetto in July-August 1943, the residents rose up against the Nazi occupation forces. The ghetto was burned and the residents were slaughtered. The region where Aryeh and his mother were living in hiding with the partisans was liberated in July 1944 by Soviet forces. Aryeh and his mother relocated to displaced persons camps where they lived for several years. They emigrated to Israel in the late 1940’s. Chaya remarried and had a daughter, Aryeh’s half sister, Miri Gur, who was born in 1947. Aryeh joined the Israeli Defense Forces, fought in the Arab-Israeli Wars, and attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He married Dr. Rina Altberker in 1958 in Tel Aviv, Israel. During the Holocaust, Rina and her family were confined to the Warsaw ghetto for two years. Then Rina and her mother were smuggled out and provided with false identities as non-Jewish Polish women. Aryeh had a stroke in 1978. He had shown artistic talent when young and he taught himself to draw and paint with his left hand as part of his rehabilitation. His mother Chaya, 99, passed away in 2007.
Archival History
The painting was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2006 by Arie Singer.
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Arie Singer
Scope and Content
Watercolor work by Arie Singer depicting uniformed person watched by German soldiers removing bodies from a pit and placing them in a large outdoor fire. It is from a series created from 1985-2000 based upon memories and events from his youth as a 13 year old partisan fighter in the forests northeast of Vilna, Poland, (Vilnius, Lithuania) and in Belarus from 1943-1944. After the Soviet occupation of Vilna in late 1939, Arie's family fled to Glembokie (Hlybokaye, Belarus). When Germany invaded Russia in June 1941, the area was assaulted by German mobile killing units who, with the help of the local populace, murdered thousands of Jews. Arie and his mother were forced into the Jewish ghetto. His father, Zvi, age 38, was killed in the massacres at Ponary in 1941. As the pogroms continued into the spring of 1943, Arie and his mother, Chaya, age 35, escaped the ghetto, which was being destroyed by the Germans. They went into hiding in the Nievier Forest near Vilna, where they engaged in partisan activities. The area was liberated by the Red Army in July 1944. After some years in a displaced persons camps, Arie and Chaya emigrated to Israel in the late 1940s. Colonel Singer began creating this series of paintings about his Holocaust experiences in the mid 1980s as rehabilitation following a stroke in 1975.
Conditions Governing Access
No restrictions on access
Conditions Governing Reproduction
No restrictions on use
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Watercolor and colored pencil work on white paper depicting an exterior with snow covered ground, snow spotted evergreens, and a fence in the far background. On the right is a brown, dirt pit with bodies lying on the ground; a man in a gray overcoat stands inside watching as 2 men in gray overcoats carry a body across the snow to a large open fire. There is a circle of red and brown in the snow with 9 bodies with yellow Stars of David badges sprawled on the ground, partly obscured by a big plume of gray and red smoke and flames that rises from the ground beside them. A soldier in green stands on the edge of the pit overseeing the action. There is a date in Hebrew in the upper left.
back, pencil : 141 / 129 back, pencil : 22,641-1.3.43 back, pencil : 2000000001941-43 back, pencil : Hebrew text [Died] 2.3.1943 -45
Subjects
- World War, 1939-1945--Jewish resistance--Belarus--Pictorial works.
- World War, 1939-1945--Underground movements--Belarus.
- Guerrillas--Belarus--Biography.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in art.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust--Belarus.
- Autobiographical memory in art--Pictorial works.
Genre
- Art
- Object