This is a color painting of a pastoral scene including fields, houses with red slate roofs, and a windmill. Underneath the drawing there is text in Yiddish.
This painting was used as scenery in a play performed by children at a dormitory in the Vilna Ghetto. It is unclear whether the dormitory at 4 Strashun Steet was used as an orphanage or as another kind of school or children's institution. Next door to this building, at 6 Strashun Street, there was a well-known Jewish library and school.
Jews in the Vilna Ghetto, as in other ghettos in Nazi Europe, engaged in many cultural activities such as theatre, music, art, and literature. This was intended as a distraction from the difficulties of daily life and gave both participants and audiences something to look forward to. It was also an attempt to defy the Nazis, a type of spiritual resistance. Children's theatre was seen as a way of shielding children from the horrible realities of ghetto life by allowing them a creative outlet. This scenery may perhaps allude to the dreams of the ghetto children; the open fields and sunny skies certainly do not reflect their cramped and dark living conditions. The play One Chanukah Candle Less was created by children in a children’s home. These children had probably been orphaned or their parents could not care for them under the harsh ghetto conditions.
This painting underwent a fascinating journey from the forests of Lithuania to Moscow and finally to the National Library in Israel. Abraham Sutzkever, a Yiddish author and poet, managed to escape from the Vilna Ghetto, carrying a number of artifacts from the ghetto with him. He joined the partisans, and the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in the Soviet Union managed to convince the Soviet authorities to airlift him into Moscow. The first plane sent to bring him was brought down by the Nazis, and Sutzkever fashioned a suitcase from the fragments of the plane. The second attempt was a success, and Sutzkever was flown to Moscow along with his suitcase filled with his writings and remembrances of the war from the Vilna Ghetto. Among the many documents in the suitcase was this drawing of the scenery for the Chanuka play. Sutzkever eventually moved to Israel in 1947 and donated the suitcase and its contents to the National Library of Israel for safekeeping.
Discussion Questions
Observation
Reading Between the Lines
Connections
Creative Ideas
This is a color painting of a pastoral scene including fields, houses with red slate roofs, and a windmill. Underneath the drawing there is text in Yiddish.
This painting was used as scenery in a play performed by children at a dormitory in the Vilna Ghetto. It is unclear whether the dormitory at 4 Strashun Steet was used as an orphanage or as another kind of school or children's institution. Next door to this building, at 6 Strashun Street, there was a well-known Jewish library and school.
Jews in the Vilna Ghetto, as in other ghettos in Nazi Europe, engaged in many cultural activities such as theatre, music, art, and literature. This was intended as a distraction from the difficulties of daily life and gave both participants and audiences something to look forward to. It was also an attempt to defy the Nazis, a type of spiritual resistance. Children's theatre was seen as a way of shielding children from the horrible realities of ghetto life by allowing them a creative outlet. This scenery may perhaps allude to the dreams of the ghetto children; the open fields and sunny skies certainly do not reflect their cramped and dark living conditions. The play One Chanukah Candle Less was created by children in a children’s home. These children had probably been orphaned or their parents could not care for them under the harsh ghetto conditions.
This painting underwent a fascinating journey from the forests of Lithuania to Moscow and finally to the National Library in Israel. Abraham Sutzkever, a Yiddish author and poet, managed to escape from the Vilna Ghetto, carrying a number of artifacts from the ghetto with him. He joined the partisans, and the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in the Soviet Union managed to convince the Soviet authorities to airlift him into Moscow. The first plane sent to bring him was brought down by the Nazis, and Sutzkever fashioned a suitcase from the fragments of the plane. The second attempt was a success, and Sutzkever was flown to Moscow along with his suitcase filled with his writings and remembrances of the war from the Vilna Ghetto. Among the many documents in the suitcase was this drawing of the scenery for the Chanuka play. Sutzkever eventually moved to Israel in 1947 and donated the suitcase and its contents to the National Library of Israel for safekeeping.
Discussion Questions
Observation
Reading Between the Lines
Connections
Creative Ideas
Collection of Vilna Ghetto documents
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