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By Gerry Greber
 OCEANSIDE, California—Prof. Andrea Liss of Cal State University San Marcos recently told an audience at the Oceanside Museum of Art that gory images from the Shoah—familiar from documentary films, books and museum exhibitions—may harm, rather than help, the cause of Remembrance.
The professor suggested that the graphic images of skeletal bodies and wanton violence cause the younger generation to shy away from serious consideration of Shoah subjects. At the same time, she said, display of such images makes the dead the subjects of irreverent focus, degrading their memories.
Prof. Liss spoke on October 8 in conjunction with the museum’s current exhibit of the needlework art of survivor Esther Nisenthal Krinitz, whose images are poignant but not gory.
“The issue” she stated “is the transformation of the documentary photos, required for historical purposes, to a respectful remembrance of those who were violated.”
Toward that end she proceeded to show pictures of some of the victims of the Shoah as they looked before “it” all began. Some of whom were survivors.
Liss showed photos displayed at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., inside a tower erected to resemble the smokestack of crematoria. The photos are of the Shoah victims as they were prior to their incarceration and torture by the Nazis. There also are photos of some of their intimate possessions. These tributes while evocative are not gory.
However, she also showed a picture of a large amount of women’s hair that was accumulated in a pile at Auschwitz. This was considered the ultimate degradation of women. She said that when Elie Wiesel first saw this photograph he spoke out strenuously saying, “Stop, stop insulting the dead!”
The professor read her presentation instead of speaking to the museum attendees, possibly the reason why some in the audience walked out of the room before she concluded.
What interaction there was with the audience came at the beginning of her presentation, when she asked if anyone had Shoah-related experiences that they would like to share.
One non-Jewish man from Germany related that he once had been sitting in a seat on a bus when he noticed an elderly woman standing. He said he got up to offer her his seat. She did not reply. He offered it again. Again no reply. Finally some man got up and started shouting “Don’t you see that Jewish bitch has no right to sit in a streetcar?” This upset him. It was only then that he noticed a yellow star, he said, adding that it took him several hours to pull himself together.
Another person arose to tell of her return visit to her home in Rhodes, Greece, where the little Sephardic synagogue has been maintained by contributions from the Sephardic communities of the United States. In the synagogue she saw a
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plaque put on the wall which contained all of the names of those members who were taken away on a certain day. She took a picture of the plaque.
When she got home she went to a Sephardic picnic and “made the mistake” of showing the photo to those present. Almost everyone there saw the name of a member of his or her family on the plaque. All were gone. She said that it had a “traumatizing” effect on the picnic.
Following the professor’s talk I spoke with one Holocaust survivor, Sally Krieger, who had come from Baltimore to visit her daughter, Sylvia Lasser, in San Diego.
She said that she was born in 1927 in Lodz Poland. In August 1944, her mother, younger sister, and two younger brothers died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. Twelve days later Sally and her only remaining younger sister were sent from Auschwitz to another death camp named Stuttoff. Apparently they were considered strong enough to work. They were eventually liberated by the Russians. In October 1945 she was reunited with her father, in Lodz, and they eventually made it to the United States through the assistance of a friend living here.
I asked Krieger for her reaction to Dr. Liss’s comments about the displays of Holocaust photos changes. Her response came from the heart. “Anything that keeps the Holocaust being remembered I am in favor of.” She further added “No one can understand the atrocities unless you have lived it yourself, like we did. It is important for this professor, film makers, teachers and our children to continuously teach about the Nazi movement and all forms of prejudice so that it should never happen again.”
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