Flight or Fight
Nazi Billionaires.
The Dark History of Germany’s Wealthiest Dynasties
Author David de Jong and Rachel Stern in conversation
Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan
334 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY, United States
This event features a conversation between Rachel Stern and David de Jong, author of the landmark work of investigative journalism, which reveals the true story of how Germany’s wealthiest business dynasties amassed untold money and power by abetting the atrocities of the Third Reich – and how America knowingly allowed these horrors to happen. In 1946, Günther Quandt – patriarch of Germany’s most iconic industrial empire, a dynasty that today controls BMW – was arrested for suspected Nazi collaboration. Quandt claimed that he had been forced to join the party by his archrival, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, and the courts acquitted him. But Quandt lied. And his heirs, and those of other Nazi billionaires, have [...]
Death and Immortality:
The Gentle Power of Hans von Trotha’s “Pollak’s Arm”
Hans von Trotha and Ori Z Soltes in conversation
Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan
334 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY, United States
Ludwig Pollak (Prague 1868-1943 Auschwitz) was an extraordinary connoisseur of antiquities--an Austro-Hungarian Jew whose path into academia was impeded by his religion, but who settled in Rome, where he carved out a unique place for himself as an expert in recognizing, understanding, and organizing great works of art. It was he who shaped and articulated the magnificent collections of JP Morgan. Of perhaps even greater consequence, his astute eye saw a sculpted fragment of an arm in a flea market that, he deduced, was the limb missing from the spectacular Hellenistic-Roman sculptural group known as Laocoon. He gifted that arm fragment to the Vatican so that it might complete the work that occupied an important place within [...]
Ludwig and Else Meidner.
An Artist Couple Exiled in London
Lecture by Erik Riedel, Frankfurt/Main (Germany)
Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan
334 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY, United States
When Ludwig and Else Meidner met in 1925, he was already an established artist well-known for his so-called Apocalyptic Landscapes. Although Else started as Ludwig’s student, she developed a distinct independent style and he always praised her art as more refined than his own “coarse” works. As Else Meidner slowly gained recognition in Berlin art circles, her career was abruptly cut short by the Nazi-regime in 1933. She moved to Cologne with her husband in 1935; and they emigrated to England in 1939 only a few weeks before the war started. In London both lived largely unnoticed by the English art scene. But while Ludwig frustratedly returned to Germany, she decided to stay in England. Their complicated relationship developed from [...]
Sneak Preview of Theatrical Release “Three Minutes – A Lengthening”
Post-Screening Q&A with Director Bianca Stigter
and Author Glenn Kurtz, moderated by Dr. Ori Z Soltes
Quad Cinema, New York
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th Street, New York, NY, United States
"'Three Minutes' is more than a documentary about the Holocaust — it is an investigative drama, a meditation on the ethics of moving images and a ghost story about people who might be forgotten should we take those images for granted." Beatrice Loayza, The New York Times (Critic's Pick) [FULL ARTICLE HERE] Thank you to everyone who made the sneak screening such a huge success! Catch a screening of the film: NOW SCREENING NATIONWIDE - FIND YOUR CITY HERE Three minutes of footage of a 16mm home movie found in an attic in South Florida, shot by David Kurtz in 1938, are the only moving images remaining of the Jewish inhabitants of Nasielsk, Poland before [...]
Behind the Bronze.
The Sculptor Maurice Blik (born 1939 Amsterdam)
Featuring Maurice Blik and Julian Freeman (both London, UK)
Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan
334 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY, United States
Maurice Blik has lived in England since being liberated from Bergen Belsen concentration camp, where he was taken as a small child from his birthplace, Amsterdam. The ability to come to terms with this experience and to confront the face of humanity that he has witnessed, stayed silent in his life for some 40 years. It finally found a voice in the passionate sculptures which began to emerge in the late 1970s when he created a series of horses’ heads. These noble and benevolent creatures posses an energy and a life force that seem just barely harnessed long enough to take their shape in the clay itself. Later he progressed to more figurative work in which the irrepressible joy [...]
The Enduring Legacy of
Chaim Gross (1902-1991)
With Daughter Mimi Gross and Sasha Davis
Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan
334 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY, United States
Chaim Gross (1902-1991) fled Europe as a teenager after experiencing the violence of World War I and the disruption of his artistic training due to anti-Semitic policies. He arrived in New York City in 1921 and quickly found a welcoming environment among fellow artists, many of whom were also immigrants, at the Educational Alliance Art School. Despite difficult beginnings, Gross rose to become one of America’s leading twentieth-century sculptors and a key proponent of the direct carving movement. Although a small number of his works referenced his horrific early experiences and the later murder of family members in the Holocaust, his themes were largely joyful, showing mothers at play or acrobats and dancers. Image above: [...]
From Generation to Generation:
The Upbringing and Art of
Mimi Gross (born 1940, New York)
Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan
334 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY, United States
Mimi Gross is the daughter of well-known sculptor Chaim Gross (1902–1991). She grew up to become an artist and one obvious question one might ask is how her work was influenced by and/or diverged from her father's work. But both Chaim and his wife Renee were immigrants--so New York City-born Mimi grew up as an American in an immigrant household, which might raise the question: were there issues derived from the particulars of her growing up that affected her and her art--and might one imagine the curve of her life as different in a non-immigrant context, or a context experienced at a different time in American and world history? These and other questions are discussed in a dialogue between Mimi Gross and [...]
Out of Exile.
The Photography of Fred Stein (1909-1967)
With Son Peter Stein and Curator Ulrike Kuschel, Berlin (Germany)
Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan
334 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY, United States
Fred Stein lived through some of the greatest upheavals of the 20th century. He escaped Nazi Germany; he mingled with Chagall and Brecht in Paris; and he debated with Einstein in New York. He was a scholar, a refugee, and an idealist. But above all, he was a photographer. An early innovator of hand-held street photography in 1930s France and 1940s New York, his images are sophisticated, beautiful, and touching; his portraits include some of the most important people of the mid-20th century, like Albert Einstein. Image above: Fred Stein, Americans All, New York 1943 © Fred Stein Archive Fred Stein, Paris Evening, Paris 1934 © Fred Stein Archive [...]
The Shape and Color of Survival.
Samuel Bak (born Vilnius, Lithuania, 1933)
Lecture by Ori Z Soltes, PhD
ONLINE
VA, United States
Image above: Samuel Bak, Warsaw Excavation, 2007. Oil on canvas, 16 x 20 in. Image Courtesy Pucker Gallery © Samuel Bak Samuel Bak was 6 years old when the Nazis began ending his childhood, as the war that they engendered would soon extend to his native Vilnius. The number “6” became an important element in his art, since it is also the number of the Commandment with which God enjoins us not to commit murder, for which the Holocaust represented such a profound abrogation. His father smuggled him out of the ghetto in the sack that he was still permitted to use to gather firewood—and was subsequently murdered by the regime. By then Bak himself had already [...]
Back into the Light.
Four Women Artists – Their Works. Their Paths.
Lecture by Eva Atlan, PhD, Frankfurt (Germany)
ONLINE
VA, United States
Erna Pinner, Rosy Lilienfeld, Amalie Seckbach, and Ruth Cahn were among the first women artists in Frankfurt to enjoy professional success. Throughout the Roaring Twenties, these four Jewish women left their mark on Frankfurt’s art scene, published and exhibited internationally, cultivated a cosmopolitan lifestyle, and competed with their male colleagues. When the National Socialists seized power, their careers came to an abrupt end. From then on, they were persecuted as Jews and their works ostracized; later, after the end of World War II, they were largely forgotten. Now, “Back into the Light” is at long last bringing them back to the public eye. The departure point is an article by art historian Sascha Schwabacher, published May 1935 [...]
