I consider this story my inheritance. It is mostly Max’s story, my paternal great-grandfather.  And Gustave Dore’s story, the most pre-eminent illustrator of victorian France. And maybe my grandmother’s, as Max was her father in law. A story I want my children to know and pass on to their children. L’dor vidor, from generation to generation. Maybe I fit in to the story, probably I don’t.  But it has fascinated me my whole life and is a mystery the passage of time has already precluded me from ever solving.  Too many people have already passed. I did not think of the questions when I had the time to ask.  I never knew Richard Loewengart, Max’s son, my grandfather - he passed at a very young age leaving my Gramma Irma a widow for over four decades. As a child I did not know the treasure of my grandmother’s memory; I valued lively gin rummy, her hand rolled spaeztle and  delicious linzer torte and her infinite kindness.  I forgot to ask enough. Unaware was I that the death of an old person is like a theft of that treasure trove or an old fashioned library burning down and hers at age 94 would be a particularly rough loss.  Blindly now I think, I ponder, I ask, I google.  There are whole websites out there that can give me so much information...but it is just words, documents. Who wants to be remembered by their naturalization card or a list of passengers?  Yet, in the age of Facebook and too much information I cherish each of these clues, finding reason to celebrate and use them as a lifeline to decipher the past.  Already, they have fact checked our family legends to be erroneous and we need to reword our accounts to be accurate.  At one turn, I am kicking myself that the object that has inspired this story slipped out of my grasp as I failed to win an ebay auction by a one “mr. diggy” identical to the family heirloom that ignited this tale and then months later I am victorious having procured a copy from England and averting it’s demise in the rubbish.

 

This is a story about Art.  This is a story about the Holocaust.  This is a story about what we place value on in our lives.  In particular, this is a story about a book.  A great big honking book. Weighs, nearly 25 pounds. Measures 17” by 13”. Often known as the good book.  Lots of them in circulation.  Inexplicably our version became the object of international and historical drama.  Great-Grandfather Max carried our enormous family bible from one port to the next, trying to escape war torn Europe. But I am missing lots of details.

 

In June of 1941 my Great-grandfather Max Loewengart escaped Nazi Germany. It was not a good time to  be a Jew and needing to leave Europe. He probably could have left earlier. My grandparents had already immigrated to the  States in 1934 and were living  in a small  one  bedroom apartment in New York City. Max however had stayed to take care of  my  great-grandmother  Sophie, who had diabetes in our idyllic village of Rexingen where my family had lived peaceably for centuries by invitation of a medieval prince, nestled in the  Black Forest. When she passed, Max was at liberty to make his exit.   But  it was not so easy.     He got his  visa from  Stuttgart. He was fortunate to have my  grandparents as his advocates, responding to desperate telegrams and  paying deposits for his passage, working with the Joint Distribution Committee a relief organization headquartered in New York. But  each  port he tried to leave from...he found impossible to  find passage. He went to  Hamburg, to Rotterdam, to Marseille,  to Lisbon -   each time to find leave from war torn Europe  to be denied, whether it was due to the blitzkrieg, the Vichy government  or simply the mood of the administrative minion, who held his life in the balance. My hardworking, broke, new parent, immigrant grandparents  sent him the fare at  every port he attempted to leave.  Max eventually made  his passage from Vigo, Spain.   All the while Max was carrying our family bible printed in  1874 with him. A  huge Gustave Dore elephant folio tome.  Not only did  this volume (auf Deustch,  in German) contain the Old Testament consisting of the Tanach: the Torah,  the prophets and the  writings, Gustave Dore’s exquisite biblical illustrations which were like possessing a  portable Giotto’s Scrovegni Chapel  but also all of our family records of  notable war  heroes  (serving the country they were now being exterminated from)  and other  news  of note, the births, the deaths and the marriage records of our Loewengart family.   I never  knew my great-grandfather, but as a child I always studied this treasured  book  that contained the links to my  family’s   history  of  lives lived in a town  where  our ancestors  graves  date  to the 1400s but now no Jew lives. Why did my grandfather further  risk  his life burdened with the Heilige Schrifte.  Do material things warrant such value? Perhaps no, but perhaps  yes.  Great-grandpa Max, obviously thought it was worth it. A monument to tradition and to love of family.We are, after all, the people of the book.

 

So what will I do?  How do I honor my Great-Grandfather, my family, my people, my God?  I am an artist so I will do one thing that I know is authentic - to find truth through my art. I will attempt to journey with Gustave and Max in what seemed to have drove them. Inspired them. I always tell my art students that the best way to learn about painting is to look at painting. I encourage them that they must master the art of knowing how to see, as Leonardo would say, sapere vadere.  This can be meaningful in the physical and the spiritual and always instructive.  Like Asher Lev, who had to memorize the Guernica, I have my students emulate Giotto, Vermeer.  I will sit at the feet of Dore. And in my way I will paint and sculpt his illustrations contained in the family bible that my Grandfather held so dear.  I will try to see what they saw.  Visually, in their mind’s eye and in their hearts. Who will this allow me to commune with? Max, Gustave or ideally God?  I don’t even know, if I will have the courage to  show the work to anyone, but perhaps this exercise will make me feel halfway worthy to address their roles, understand them better.  Standing on their shoulders, as an ancestor, an artist, a child of God I will be their student and appreciate more deeply having my being.  I will attempt to tell the story. My journey will not be through time, or place, or history but of empathy, and revelation, and I believe… love.