Painting Czeslawa Kwoka, Honoring Children of the Holocaust - Paperback

by Lori Schreiner (Author), Theresa Senato Edwards (Author)

This collaboration between painter Lori Schreiner and poet Theresa Senato Edwards was inspired by photographs taken at Auschwitz by Holocaust survivor Wilhelm Brasse. The photographs sent Schreiner to the canvas and her paintings set Edwards' pen to paper. The resulting collaboration brings the children behind the images to life, gives perspective and dimension to their personhood, lends vitality to their memory. The reader gets a sense of what each individual child might have been like, what each little life might have meant. The children portrayed in this work came from Belgium, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, and Ukraine; they were Jewish, Roman Catholic, Jehovah's Witness, Gypsy, mixed race, gay. They are representative of the spectrum of lives lost in the Holocaust. The art and poetry in this book juxtapose indelible lives with catalogued identification numbers as the artists confront the inhumanity of the Holocaust, bringing the reader along to witness.The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oswiecim, Poland provided information about the children in this book and granted permission to reproduce their photographs.

Author Biography

Theresa Senato Edwards' first book of poems, Voices Through Skin, was published in June 2011 by Sibling Rivalry Press. Edwards teaches and tutors at Marist College, is scholar-facilitator for the New York Council for the Humanities' Conversations Bureau Program, is founder of Holly Rose Review (archived online), and blogs at TACSE creations. Lori Schreiner is a social worker, writer, and painter. Her writing has appeared in The Best of Write Action No. 1 and 2. Her paintings have been shown in New York City, The Windham Art Gallery, and other local venues in Vermont. In addition to her creative pursuits, Lori supervises the children's program at a community mental health clinic in Vermont and is currently a member of the Brattleboro West Arts Association.