UTW 17

Two fighters after capture during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Art: 1994
Media: Ink, watercolor & gouache
Framed, 46 inches H x 29 W [116.8 x 88.9 cm]

The framing was a gift of the Wing Luke Asian Museum, Seattle. (This drawing, along with four other UTW series drawings,  were exhibited in an educational two-part exhibit at the museum in 2002. The other part was a photograph exhibit about the late Chinese diplomat, Feng Shan Ho, who provided thousands of visas to Jewish Austrians prior to the start of WWII in Europe.)

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The wings were drawn at the ornithology lab, Burke Museum, Seattle.

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The drawing was inspired by a Warsaw ghetto photo of several Jewish fighters, two of whom are portrayed in the drawing. Three were executed by the Nazi soldiers shortly after their capture, according to accounts of the Uprising.

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In 2014 or 2015 I learned that the woman portrayed at right (in my drawing) had not been executed. She survived concentration-death camps and lived in Israel in the post-war years.

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The idea for the painted border design came from an illuminated Jewish manuscript in the book Jewish Art and Civilization (edited by G. Wigoder) which has Hebrew letters and writing painted around all four sides of the border of the manuscript page.  That manuscript is reproduced in color, p. 54, in the chapter titled “France” written by Dr. Moshe Catane.

The manuscript is an illuminated page from a Hebrew bible with "the text, in verse form, expresses the longing for the return to Zion. The Bible was written by the scribe (or by him and his family) in 1301 in Provence. That manuscript is in the collection of the Royal Library, Cod. Hebrew II, Copenhagen.

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In my drawing I chose the Hebrew language lyrics for the Israeli national anthem Hatikvah, offering a symbolic ashes to rebirth for viewers of the art.

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The initials ZOB seen in the lower left stand for the initials of the umbrella organization of the various Jewish political groups and organizations that joined together to fight the Nazi murderers during the Uprising. It means Zydowska Organiczja Zoborowska  (Jewish Fighters Organization).