Ghosts of Warsaw

The E.M. Adams hosts an exhibit of drawings from the Warsaw ghetto in New Hope, Pa.

By: Amy Brummer

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"Portrait of a Man"

Images at the E.M. Adams Gallery in New Hope capture everyday life in the
Warsaw ghetto.


    Among the furniture and collectibles at the Golden Nugget
flea market in Lambertville, Ed Adams saw something that gave him a chill.
   On a vendor’s table was a collection of 13 drawings that spoke
to his soul.
   According to the vendor, the drawings were from the Warsaw ghetto.
He had purchased them from a Polish couple who had fled Europe in 1940 and had
known the artist.
   "They haunted me," Mr. Adams says, "haunting in terms of the
quality and what were they doing here. They needed to be somewhere else."
   Consisting of four portraits of Zionist leaders and nine scenes
of daily lives, the pencil drawings on paper are a rare glimpse into a world where
very little survived. They will be on exhibit at the E.M. Adams Gallery in New
Hope, Pa., April 11-30.
   "What makes the images interesting is that they are not dire
images of death and destruction," says Mr. Adams, a gallery owner, artist and
psychologist. "They are images of everyday life in the ghetto.
   "Each piece is signed in Hebrew. From the best we could tell,
the name translates as Ben Kadai, but people are telling us that it is likely
a fictitious name, so he was protected, because if people made art, they were
imprisoned or they could be easily killed for that. To me (the pictures) are an
artistic symbol of independence and of human spirit."
   The scenes of daily life range from a lighthearted depiction
of a man who is clearly enjoying the attention the artist is showing him. Another
shows a group of men, huddled together, their tense whispers almost audible as
they cast anxious glances at the street. An existential portrait of a man standing
alone, a star affixed to his chest, tells a harrowing story in his solitary remove.
A father and son, wearing their prayer shawls, are preparing to worship.
   "Many of the drawings are about prayer or they are about to
pray," Mr. Adams says. "So he was probably a very religious man, trying to hold
on to his heritage. And as a form of resistance, they’re unapologetically, clearly
Jewish. So this man is clearly interested in who he was, what he was about, and
he was defining himself and his beliefs at a time when defining himself and his
beliefs was a death sentence."
   While Mr. Adams is not Jewish, he is no stranger to the themes
of the Holocaust in art. His 1995 bronze sculpture, "Courage and Compassion,"
on view in Smith Field Park in Parsippany, is a tribute to Raoul Wallenberg, a
Swede who saved tens of thousands of Jews from Adolf Eichman and Gestapo henchmen
in Budapest. In 1996, he was commissioned by two holocaust survivors who were
saved by Oskar Schindler to create a bronze bust of Mr. Schindler as a gift to
Steven Spielberg.
   "In my own work," he says, "what I try to do with a portrait
or any subject matter is not paint a surface, but I’m painting an interior, or
the sculpture is about the interiority of the life experience. ‘Courage and Compassion,’
for example, is not something you can hold or touch, but is putting into bronze
something that is one’s interior. So when I saw these drawings, I saw the quality
of the drawing, but what was coming across was that the interiority of the people
in the pictures was powerful, so there was something going on inside of them.
There was a natural kind of rivet to that."

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"On the Stoop"


   Because the works were so powerful to him, he enlisted the help
of colleagues from the men’s group he started over a decade ago. Fifteen of the
members banded together to raise funds to purchase and archive the works. They
brought the drawings to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., to check for
authenticity. The paper, which was the back of an old stamp-collecting ledger
with German writing, and its age, were consistent with its provenance. According
to the museum, Mr. Adams says, which doesn’t own any artifacts form the Warsaw
ghetto, they are "historically priceless."
   For the group of men who collected them, it has been an opportunity
to put into action the ideals that form the basis of their association. Men Mentoring
Men seeks to provide support for men by providing a forum to discuss their roles
as husbands, fathers, sons, boyfriends, and to build on that feedback.
   "It is very soul building for the organization and the men involved,"
says Mr. Adams. "It develops a kind of strength of what we can do — keep
a man’s memory alive, holding something that has great historical value. And we
did it on speculation per se. We didn’t know of its value. We took a risk, but
it is out of the power of that risk that so many good things happened."
   In addition to the exhibit, the group has published a poster
and limited-edition giclée prints in both a standard and deluxe volume.
Men Mentoring Men wants people to have access to the images as learning tools
and hopes they can find a home for permanent display. The men want their efforts
to set an example of how the actions of men can be used to empower society.
   "It is the powerfulness that can be brought into change, that
can be brought into living more authentic lives," Mr. Adams says. "It is doing
what people are supposed to do on this planet, to take positions, to have opinions,
to be direct, to take control, to be inventive.
   "In other words, to not be afraid to take control of the power
that is inside the man, regardless of what direction or where that power goes,
but to do so with awareness. Because the worst of masculinity can be a terribly
destructive force and the best of masculinity can change the world."
Drawings from the Warsaw Ghetto will be on display at the E.M. Adams Gallery,
440 Union Square Drive, New Hope, Pa., April 11-30. At the opening reception,
April 12, 6-9 p.m., Rabbi Sandy Parian of Kehilat Hanahar Little Shul in New Hope
will offer a blessing, followed by a discussion of the drawings’ historical significance.
Gallery hours: Fri.-Sun. noon-5 p.m. For information, call (215) 862-5667. On
the Web: www.adamsart.com