Global public art installation to honor Holocaust survivors and commemorate victims of the Tree of Life mass shooting.
Pitt brings visitors face to face with the Holocaust in photo exhibition
Art takes a stand against hate in Luigi Toscano’s photographic exhibition, “Lest We Forget,” an inyour-face testament to the truth of the Holocaust that has arrived in Pittsburgh.
Among the 60 larger-than-life portraits that line the pathways between Heinz Chapel and the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning are 16 Pittsburgh survivors, introduced here as part of this traveling exhibition.
A preview of “Lest We Forget,” on display Thursday through Nov. 15, drew three local survivors to campus Wednesday. Solange Lebovitz hugged Mr. Toscano upon seeing her portrait for the first time, her green eyes peering out from a mesh canvas of about 60 by 88 inches. With Harry Drucker, 96, and Judah Samet, 81, she posed for a photo with the portraits, which stood firm against the day’s rain and wind.
Each image comes with a caption that includes how the survivor escaped the Nazi genocide that killed 6 million Jews and a little bit about who they are today. For example, the one for Ms. Lebovitz, born in Paris in 1930, reads, “Hidden child in Normandy, France 1942-44; separated from her parents and lived with an older Catholic couple, went to church every Sunday. 1944 reunited with her family. Writes poetry and a book with the story of her family.”
Mr. Samet, a Hungary-born survivor of Nazi concentration camps, also survived the murderous attack at the Tree of Life synagogue nearly a year ago. Other Pittsburghers whose portraits are on display are Shulamit Bastacky, Albert Darhy, Yolanda Avram Willis, Irene Szulman, Frances Spiegel, Bronia Weiner, Oscar Singer, Esther Falk, Francine “Fanny” Gelernter, Moshe Baran and Sam Shear, along with Sam Gottesman and Herman Snyder, who both died this year.
Mr. Toscano, 47, an Italian-born German resident, began this epic undertaking five years ago, but its roots go back to his interest in history as a teen. He needed to see for himself what he was reading about, and visited the Auschwitz concentration camp. He recalled standing for hours in front of the giant pile of children’s shoes displayed near the ovens, taking in the enormity of what had happened there.
His idea of an outdoor exhibition on a large scale was met with skepticism. Only after he began taking photos of survivors and displaying them did his concept gain acceptance. He eventually spent a year gathering images in Germany, the United States,
Ukraine, Israel and Russia.
There have been times he has wanted to stop, but he continues to hear from cities and survivors who want the story told. His images were on display in Boston when the Tree of Life shootings occurred, and the exhibition became the site for a minute of silence as that city honored the dead in Pittsburgh.
“I was shocked by the size of what happened in Pittsburgh, and in a second, I thought, ‘I am doing the right thing. This is necessary,’” Mr. Toscano said.
He noted that in May, his work was in Vienna, where it was vandalized with swastikas. Mr. Toscano, the father of two young daughters, said there are children he meets who ask questions such as “What is a concentration camp?” and “Who was Hitler?”
“There is still work to be done,” he said.
Shulamit Bastacky, who survived as a “hidden child” in Poland, where she was kept safe by a Catholic nun, is among the local survivors continuing that work. The Squirrel Hill resident and Pitt graduate speaks at Western Pennsylvania schools, using “education, education, education” to stifle the forces of hate and Holocaust deniers.
“Words matter,” Ms. Bastacky said. “They can either heal or injure. We have to fight hate not with hate, but education and information.”
Her goals are shared by the exhibition that has been hosted in city centers and cultural institutions, including the United Nations and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C. It landed at Pitt because of a chance meeting between Kathy Humphrey, Pitt’s senior vice chancellor for engagement, and Lauren Bairnsfather, director of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh. They became acquainted at a party two years ago, when Ms. Humphrey asked to visit the center.
“We sat down and discovered that we had a real common interest in fighting intolerance and work on inclusivity,” Ms. Bairnsfather said.
Collaborating on bringing “Lest We Forget” to Pitt fulfills both of those goals, along with commemorating the one-year anniversary of the Tree of Life attack.
Ms. Humphrey was having trouble containing her excitement Wednesday, seeing the images stretched out along the rain-soaked Pitt pathways. She said this is the Year of Creativity at Pitt, just one reason the exhibition has meaning there. It also will be the centerpiece of a Jewish Studies course, and there will be other religious and cultural outreach to Jewish students and the community.
“Our entire city has been affected by hate, and the fact that we could have something on our campus that reminded us of the dangers of hate was really important to me,” Ms. Humphrey said.
“There are so many young people for whom the Holocaust seems to be centuries away. For us to make it fresh in their minds, that some of these people live among us who have had this experience, makes it real, and as an institution of higher education, one of our jobs is to help people reflect on truth, and this is a reflection of truth.”