When Joseph Bau, a young Polish artist and newly arrived prisoner, was made a draftsman at the Plaszow Concentration Camp, he realized that art would save his life. The camp's Nazi leaders put him to work drafting signs and letters for the party. However, Mr. Bau had other plans for his ingenuity. From a potato, he fashioned a stamp with which to forge his fellow inmates' escape papers. With brushes and paints, he created playing cards that he secretly distributed to keep spirits up. Sketch by secret sketch, he also began to document life at the camp, stashing these records away in the secret compartments of his work cases.

Exhibit at UNHQ Visitors lobby UN Chronicle photo/Dalai Fazio

Today, Mr. Bau's raw impressions of the Holocaust represent some of the only art to have survived concentration camp life. His work joins that of David Friedman, whose portraits of inmates were the only artwork to survive Auschwitz, Henny de Brito and Hanka Kornfeld-Marder, in the exhibit "Art of the Suvivors" displayed at the United Nations Headquarters. Between 27 January and 22 February, visitors to the UN can view a wide range of Holocaust art, including Bau's books and playing cards, Friedman's portraits, and the work perhaps least acknowledged - that of survivors coming to terms with the horrors of their experiences.

"Holocaust survivors had different ways of finding outlets for the expression of their experiences", said Lilli Schindler, the daughter of Henny de Brito and, like her mother and father before her, a United Nations employee. Similar to many survivors, her mother has been unable to speak of the many horrors she witnessed, and art has been essential to her. The exhibit, she said, is a tribute to the survivors' expressions. "It's remarkable how people can find it in themselves to overcome the horrors", she added.

In order to move on with their lives, however, many of the Holocaust's survivors first needed to address their experiences, and the world that they encountered after liberation was not always welcoming. "After the war, people did not want to talk about concentration camps", said Miriam Friedman Morris, the daughter of David Friedman. Fleeing to the former Czechoslovakia and then to Israel in 1949, he encountered an overwhelming sense of wanting to move forward among the survivors. In the United States, too, the horrors of the Holocaust were still a "silent topic". Mr. Friedman, however, was determined to have his work shown and began a new series of work he called "Because They Were Jews!" Ms. Friedman Morris explained "he wanted to show the world what happened in the camps". With gaunt faces and fierce eyes, his painted characters continue to speak silent volumes, lined up or gathered in groups against bleak backgrounds. The collection, which is represented by reproductions in the UN exhibit, has made waves in the art world. It was also the first collection to be accepted by the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

Picture by Joseph Bau UN Chronicle photo/Dalai Fazio

Socially and politically, many people and countries are stressing that a refocusing on the atrocities of the Holocaust is an urgent priority as anti-Semitism again begins to rear its ugly head internationally. On 26 January 2007, the United Nations voted to condemn an Iranian conference of Holocaust deniers that took place in December 2006. More than half a century after the end of the Shoah, it seems there has hardly been a more timely moment for remembrance.

The United Nations featured a dialogue on "Confronting Anti-Semitism" as part of its "Unlearning Intolerance" series in 2004, and it continues to address the topic with this exhibit, which stands alongside one in remembrance of the Sinti and Roma killed during the Holocaust. Hundreds of people gathered at the exhibit's opening, and speakers included Rabbi Israel Singer of the World Jewish Congress and Shashi Tharoor, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information. "The Holocaust reminds us that all human beings are capable of great cruelty, but also of great strength", said Mr. Tharoor in his opening remarks. "These artists are both witnesses and storytellers. They are both victims and heroes."

After the war, Holocaust survivors and the world at large saw the forming of the United Nations as a source of hope. "They saw it as a way to prevent another World War", Ms. Schindler said. The artists' children say that the UN continues to represent protection against the atrocities of genocide, and that it is an especially appropriate place for their parents' works.

Joseph Bau's daughters, Clila and Hadasa, beside their parents' picture - Joseph and Rebecca Bau UN Chronicle photo/Dalai Fazio

"The United Nations is the international stage that my father wanted" agreed Clila Bau, Joseph Bau's daughter. While Mr. Bau passed away in 2002, and Mr. Friedman in 1980, their children note how proud he would have been of the exhibit. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity", Ms. Friedman Morris said.

Visit the "Art of the Survivors" exhibit at the United Nations visitors lobby now through 22 February 2007.

For more information on the United Nations "Unlearning Intolerance" series or for webcasts of the events, please visit: http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2005/webArticles/un_seminars2.html