UTW 50

Gypsy boy at the Nazi concentration-death camp for Gypsies, Halle, Germany

Art:  2003
Size: 32 H inches x 26 W [81.2 x 66 cm] paper
(Framing in-progress, July 2018)
Media: Ink, gouache, colored pencil on drawing paper mounted on board.

The boy - victim - was drawn from a photo courtesy of the Bundesarchiv, Germany, which I first saw on the website of the US Holocaust memorial Museum. I bought a print from the Bundesarchiv with the agreement that I would not reproduce the photo.

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The bird seen on viewers right (above his left shoulder) was inspired by a photo by Susan Middleton & David Liittschwager,  in the book "Witness - Endangered Species of North America." (Chronicle Books, San Francisco, CA., '94). The bird is a red-cockaded woodpecker; the caption states: Photographed Feb. 21, 1992 at Mississippi State University, Starkville, Mississipi.

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The Nazis murdered 500,000 Roma who they hunted down (as they did Jews) across Europe. The term Gypsy is considered demeaning by many Romany and Sinti peoples; the preferred terms are Romany and/or Sinti. 

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"We have been able to establish that more than 90% of so-called native Gypsies are of mixed blood...” “…The Gypsy question can only be solved when the main body of asocial and good-for-nothing Gypsy individuals of mixed blood is collected together in large labour camps and kept working there, and when the further breeding of this population is stopped once and for all."

- Quote from Dr. Robert Ritter, a psychologist and psychiatrist.  Appointed Director, 1937, The Research Centre for Racial Hygiene and Population Biology, Berlin. The quote was from a January 1940 progress report by Ritter.

Quoted on page 260, The Gypsies, by Angus Fraser, Blackwell, Oxford UK & Cambridge USA, 1992.

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Romany & Sinti inmates in concentration camps wore brown or black triangles on their clothing. (see lower right of the artwork.)

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The animal seen at center left is from the artist's imagination.

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The plants were drawn from plants the artist bought or picked up in Seattle. The structural imagery at lower right is from the sign posts at the entry to the Auschwitz death - extermination camp.

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A 1 min., 30 sec. video of the drawing.

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An op-ed by Segan on the term concentration camps:

The term ‘concentration camp’ is a troubling euphemism; let’s be blunt

(Real Change is a Seattle based non-profit that advocates for and aids the homeless; they publish a weekly newspaper sold by homeless vendors)