When the innocence of childhood is lost too soon…
The Victorian children I painted and published earlier this week have much in common with children this century. I could not let this theme go without looking back to other portraits of children who are calling for help. (first published in 2017 and republishing today on International Holocaust Remembrance Day).
“We must choose between the violence of adults and the smiles of children.” Elie Wiesel, Nobel Prize winning author, survivor of Nazi concentration camps. In his memoir “Night”, he wrote about his experiences in the death camps. An activist for human rights all his life, Mr. Wiesel died in 2016.
(Mixed media - charcoal and pastel pencils - in Strathmore Toned Tan Sketchbook. I imported the painting into Procreate and several other apps for the background and text.)
As I was drawing this boy, my thoughts wandered to the images of devastation in war-torn countries, to the atrocities children have witnessed, to the genocide of various religious and ethnic groups, and the fact that a whole new generation of children will live their lives with the emotional scars of war.
I remembered that survivors of prison camps have warned us in letters, and memoirs, and in documentaries to be vigilant against all types of atrocities.
“My forehead was bathed in cold sweat. But I told him that I did not believe that they could burn people in our age, that humanity would never tolerate it.”
The young boy in Elie Wiesel’s autobiographical work Night, has just arrived in Auschwitz. He is answering his father who has told him that he should have followed the women to the crematorium. Then, the father continues,
“Humanity? Humanity is not concerned with us. Today, anything is allowed…” (p.29)
Is this boy wondering when he and his family will be rescued? Is he thinking that the world has forgotten him and his loved ones?
Or is he living in fear because “today, anything is allowed…”
That really hits home with what has happened here in a Melbourne. Five innocent people dead because of one person who was off his head, and many more injured to who knows what extent. ????
We have events like that here too. So sad when it happens and it could have been prevented. Too often, there were signs, calls to authorities, whatever, and no one was either paying attention, or willing to help. Thanks Sally for leaving a comment.
Wow. Very powerful.
Thank you Anne for leaving a comment. Charcoal brings me to a dark place it would seem.