NEVER FORGET.
John Heartfield (born Helmut Franz Josef Herzfeld), was a German visual artist. As a young man, Heartfield changed his given name in response to growing German nationalism.
Heartfield understood heartbreak and cruelty at a very young age. Abandoned in the woods by his parents at the age of five, along with his older brother and two sisters. They moved in with various relatives. During this instability, Heartfield grew a resilience and strength that followed him in life and his prolific career as an artist & political activist.
“Ferociously political,” and innovative. He found creative ways to protest against anti-English attitudes—choosing World War I when Germany was fighting England to do it. Briefly employed as a letter carrier in Berlin, he dumped mail in the sewers, hoping to assist the demoralization among the folks back home and at the front. He sent his photomontage in the form of postcards to soldiers at the front as a response to the censoring of real news.
He wanted to upset and overturn the status quo.”
https://www.artforum.com/print/197609/heartfield-s-contempt-37298
“With the help of supporters, he had a narrow escape from Nazis. He eventually traveled to England. Others on the Gestapo’s list were not so fortunate. They were either killed or sent to concentration camps. Heartfield continued to infuriate Hitler when he participated in the “Freedom Calling” a radio program in London.”
The pirate station “stressed the need to optimize communication by keeping messages short and simple. It emphasized the importance of undivided solidarity with victims of Nazi persecution and condemned anti-Semitism.”
https://www.johnheartfield.com/John-Heartfield-Exhibition/freedom-calling-heartfield-book-jacket
I thought a lot about Mr. Heartfield and how fearless he was. During a time of mindless fear and ego. I'm not sure I could ever be that brave or have that much faith in my own creative power. Heartfield knew he had the ability to give a voice to the madness happening around him. I think he wanted to shock people into waking up.
Did he succeed? The unmarked graves of more than 6 million people say otherwise.
I do know, I'd rather be on the side of Heartfield, trying, perhaps in vain, to fight against the ignorance and hatred of my fellow people. Then to always be remembered as a psychopath, coward, or fool.
I don’t want to live the life of a coward. I aim to “upset and overturn the status quo.”
NEVER FORGET.
Did you know?
Almost two-thirds of millennials and Gen Zers don't know that 6
million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, and almost half can't
name a single concentration camp, an alarming new survey on Holocaust
knowledge has been found.
The survey demonstrated wide gaps in younger American's knowledge of
the genocide while also showing a concerning 15% of
millennials and Gen Zers thought holding neo-Nazi views was
acceptable.
How much of that is based on a genuine understanding of neo-Nazi's principles and how much is based on ignorance is hard to tell. Either of them is very disturbing," said Gideon Taylor, president of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which commissioned the survey."
Edgar Ainsworth
I went to Belsen shortly after it was liberated. I saw the horrors of mass death. I was nauseated, as every other sane human would be. But it wasn't the piles of rotting dead that fascinated and horrified me, it was the condition of the still living' (Edgar Ainsworth, 'Victim and Prisoner' Picture Post, September 1945). As the Art Editor for Picture Postmagazine, Edgar Ainsworth (1905-1975) visited Bergen-Belsen three times in the months after its liberation. He recorded in his drawings the changes he saw among the people he met there. Ainsworth and the other war artists, including Leslie Cole and Doris Zinkeisen, recorded the sights they witnessed primarily as an official record. They attempted to provide a sense of the scale of horror encountered on Bergen-Belsen's liberation
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Below, is a list of victims of Nazism who were noted for their achievements. Many on the lists below were of Jewish and Polish origin, although Soviet POWs, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Serbs, Catholics, Roma, and dissidents were also murdered. This list includes people from public life who, owing to their origins, their political or religious convictions, or their sexual orientation, lost their lives as victims of the Nazi regime. It includes those whose deaths were part of the Holocaust as well as individuals who died in other ways at the hands of the Nazis during World War II. Those who died in concentration camps are listed alongside those who were murdered by the Nazi Party or those who chose suicide for political motives or to avoid being murdered.
IN MEMORIUM.
In memory of the writers, artists, graphic designers, musicians, actors, actresses, comedians, and publishers whose light was stolen but will never go out.
First image: by artist LAMA SABACHTHANI [WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?], 1943, MORRIS KESTELMAN.
John Henilfe image Hochgeladen von --Nightflyer (talk) 19:28, 10 October 2009 (UTC).
https://www.theartstory.org/artist/heartfield-john/
https://rokantyfaszystowski.org/en/john-
heartfield/. http://infinitedictionary.com/blog/2016/11/18/the-art-of-resistence-john-heartfield/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_victims_of_Nazism
https://www.johnheartfield.com/John-Heartfield-Exhibition/helmut-herzfeld-john-heartfield-life/famous-political-artist/escape-from-nazis
https://rokantyfaszystowski.org/en/john-heartfield/
https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520276185/revolutionary-beauty
https://spartacus-educational.com/FWWheartfield.htm
https://www.youtube.com/
https://www.johnheartfield.com/John-Heartfield-Exhibition/helmut-herzfeld-john-heartfield-life/heartfield-in-quotes/john-heartfield-quotes
https://www.britannica.com/event/Holocaust/Artistic-responses-to-the-Holocaust
https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/artists-responses-to-the-holocaust
http://infinitedictionary.com/blog/2016/11/18/the-art-of-resistence-john-heartfield/
https://www.artforum.com/print/197609/heartfield-s-contempt-37298
http://clipart-library.com/clipart/ATbKppGkc.htm
“With great power comes, great responsibility”
Spiderman and
Stan Lee.
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