The Brown & White

It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand words.

This sentiment rang true for a New York University professor who used her father's paintings in her book to show life in Poland before the Holocaust.

On March 24 in Maginnes Hall, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblet, author of "They Called Me Mayer July: Painted Memories of a Jewish Childhood in Poland before the Holocaust," spoke about the compilation of the images and her work on the book with her father.

Her book chronicles her family's history, and the paintings tell the story of her father's childhood.

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett's father, Mayer Kirshenblatt, left Poland with his family in 1934 when he was 17 years old, before Nazis invaded his country.

"My father saw that there was no future for him in Poland and he wanted to leave," Kirshenblatt-Gimblett said. "My father's memories are untouched by the Holocaust."

In his paintings, Mayer Kirshenblatt paints himself as an observer wearing his favorite blue school outfit.

"He is the custodian of their memory of the town [before the Holocaust]," Kirshenblatt-Gimblett said.

Last June, her father went back to his childhood town to speak. The entire speech was done in Polish and received a standing ovation from the audience at the end, Kirshenblatt-Gimblett said.

One of his paintings shows a Jewish cemetery with brightly painted headstones and gilded Hebrew letters.

"Cemeteries are evidence of the large Jewish population in Poland before the Holocaust," Kirshenblatt-Gimblett said. "Being buried in a cemetery means a good death. Someone buried there lived a life, and was buried properly with a marked grave."

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett didn't show any of her father's Holocaust painting during her lecture.

"This project is about life, not death," she said. "My father didn't experience the Holocaust firsthand so I didn't include the Holocaust paintings."

But her father did include the Holocaust as subject matter for some of his paintings.

During a trip to Spain, Kirshenblatt saw some of Goya's battle-themed paintings on display at a museum. These paintings showed him how to paint the Holocaust.

"The Goya paintings gave him the confidence to paint his Holocaust paintings," she said.

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett said her father's experience is unique because his memories are not completely shaped by the Holocaust.

His friends are mostly Holocaust survivors and the conversation among them always somehow returns to their traumatic experiences in the Holocaust.

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett said her father told her he lost more than 48 family members in the Holocaust.

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett came to Lehigh on behalf of her former Jewish Civilization Professor Chava Weissler.

"As important as the Holocaust is, we tend to focus on the end of Jewish life in Poland," Weissler said. "I wanted to show my students what life was like before the Holocaust."

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett's talk was the second Berman Center program of the spring 2008 semester.