LISTEN TO THE FLAMES

Artist’s Statement

          This sculpture, Listen to the Flames, commemorates nineteen people in my family killed during the Holocaust.  They were all Lithuanian Jews.  This is the only memorial that exists to record their lives and deaths.

          It is hard to relate to six million murders.  The disturbing photos we’ve seen of mounds of bodies or emaciated prisoners in striped clothing can be alienating.  Therefore, I have tried to go beyond the general to the specific, and to make something beautiful and alive out of something horrible and deadly.

          The individuals remembered here were full of life and enthusiasm.  They were ordinary working people: a watch-maker, an office clerk, a goose farmer, the operator of a horse-driven grain mill, housewives, schoolchildren.  They lived in the villages of Vishtinetz, Naishtut-Shaki, Vilkovishk and Kovno in Lithuania.

          These people were systematically rounded up by the Nazis.  Some were shot immediately; others were made to wear a yellow star, and were later shipped off to their deaths in concentration camps–principally to Dachau in Germany.  My Lithuanian-born mother and her immediate family, through a series of lucky events, left Europe before the war broke out.  Virtually all the relatives they left behind, including my great-grandparents, were killed.

          The encased photos were obtained from various family albums.  No pictures exist of two people, but their names and faces survive in the memories of a few older folk.  Each person is depicted as a candle.  The candles are arranged in rows of seven (the days of the week) and twelve (the months of the year) to represent the time they never had.  The large central candle or “shamas” encases a well-known image loaned to me by Yad Vashem, the Jerusalem Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority.  It serves to help us imagine more precisely what happened to these people.

          Through the shamas can be seen a “yahrzeit” lamp.  This is traditionally lit on the anniversary of a loved one’s death.  The sculpture’s oil lamp burns for eighteen hours before the chamber empties.  In Hebrew, the word for eighteen–“Chai”–is also the word for “life”.   Sometimes an open flame is not practical in a particular setting.  So, in consideration of this, I have created another iteration using LED lighting, as shown in this image. Light projected from the blue base travels through the crystal clear candles and is captured in the fractures below each crystal flame.

          Scattered around the memorial are shards of glass in remembrance of Kristallnacht.  Each chip has been etched with the words “the children” in a different language.  Children of all nationalities and religions fell victim to the Holocaust.  Some lost their lives; others their childhoods.  The terror they endured seeing parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and siblings killed, dragged away by soldiers, beaten or tortured affected them forever and has had a lasting effect on their own children.

©TOAN KLEIN

Toronto, Canada

Email: [email protected]

Dimensions:

H. 20 inches W. 54 inches D. 22 inches
    51 cm.          137 cm.           56 cm.

Techniques and Materials

Gatographs (patented) encased photos in glass, optical glass, sandblasting, dalle du verre, hot tooled glass, acrylic wicks, silicone and blown glass.

Note: a custom-made display case is available.