Audiovisual productions

Moments and comments

German atrocities were such that everybody remained mute. If one didn’t speak out, it’s not he didn’t want to, he was simply not able to open his mouth in front of the endless horror happening. He still can’t open his mouth now, he is petrified by both what happened in the past and what abomination could still occur, since these crimes remained an unwritten mark in our memories, sort of a blurry presence. An essential support for memory is art, because most of what we know from other civilizations come from art, art only. Babylonien, Byzantine art… it all came to us through plastic art over time – we now have other forms –, through plastic art as a visual crystallization of good and evil. Yet art suddenly became speechless after World War II; thus it’s important to understand if art can react immediately, how art can react immediately to what is going on.

You know, painting is also a question of consciousness. If this can stimulate a consciousness toward that, it’s the beginning of an answer. But a pictural consciousness can be found through different shapes of art. Consciousness is related to destiny, not only to love – there is lots of echo to love – but also not to death – that’s always – to annihilation. By who, how, why? Exactly the questions I asked the German in Lomza (Polish prison). I was asking these stupid questions : by who? How? Why? When?

Witnesses and stories

If I’m alive, it’s not because I was stronger than the others, more glorious , or I don’t know, that I had more morale… not at all. When I saw him – Gott mein Gott – I told myself: they don’t own my life. You see, it’s something that can come to light whenever. By the way, this is what happened in Birkenau, refusing to be considered as an animal, refusing to become what they wanted us to be. And this, I believe, was my strength. I’d rather get killed than transformed into an animal.

Isaac CELNIKIER

Mot clé : animaliser