When I went to Hebrew school I had to walk past an exhibit of Holocaust photos that gave me nightmares. One in particular had an emaciated woman lying on a wood pallet with two other people.

One day, the Rabbi saw me running to my classroom, looking at the floor. When he touched my shoulder, I almost jumped out of my skin.

He could see how upset I was.

“What troubles you, my child,” he asked.

“Those pictures give me bad dreams.”

“Come to my office,” he said in a calm tone. “I have a story to tell you.”

I followed The Rabbi into his office.

“Let me tell you a story about my nephew, Samuel,” he said.

The Rabbi paused.

“So you will always remember.” 

Samuel was a recluse during high school.  He spent time in his room, sketching pictures of images that he could see out his second-floor window.

Samuel only drew in black and white. He always dreamed of painting the world in color. He drew a broken oak-colored violin in the corner, and really wanted to catch the way the sunlight brought out all its beautiful shades of brown and yellow.

To Samuel, his eighteenth birthday became probably the most special day since his thirteenth birthday when he celebrated his bar mitzvah.  Although his family was poor, he heard that Aunt Esther and Uncle Jacob were coming to visit and was excited about our visit.

She had called last week and asked Samuel what he wanted for his birthday. With his family having so little, Samuel didn’t give her an answer because he didn’t feel right asking for anything. We arrived on his birthday with hugs all around. Samuel came downstairs and saw me carrying an easel and helped me get it into the house.

“That is for you my nephew; use it wisely,” I had said.

“Oh I will; thank you Uncle Jacob.”

Samuel grinned from ear to ear. While shaking my hand, his Aunt Esther sneaked up behind him to hand to hand my nephew a box of paints with a mixing palette. He couldn’t believe it. It was a dream come true. Finally he could paint the world.  Stephen turned to his aunt and hugged her harder than he had ever hugged her before.

Samuel raced upstairs, set up the easel and began mixing shades of colors.  Realizing he was being rude, the lad returned downstairs and they all sat down to dinner and birthday cake. Nobody could have known that this would be his last.

The adults were discussing politics but Samuel couldn’t concentrate. All he could think about was finishing dinner and getting back up to his room and his wonderful new present, to which he ran as soon as excused from the table.

“That’s a bright boy,” I had said, as Samuel raced upstairs.

Samuel came home from school and right up to his new “painting studio” and start painting, until he was called down for dinner.  He practiced painting every day, always picking something different to paint.

Soon, summer came and the school year ended. The family hardly saw him anymore. Samuel didn’t take much time to eat and did not worry about the other concerns plaguing Poland at the time. The shy artist would not share his paintings with anyone until he had finally completed the violin that was his pride and joy.  The family viewed his painting, full of colors and design.

Everybody applauded.

Soon, Samuel began painting portraits and selling them. One day, Samuel’s father came home very upset. He had been fired from his job at the engineering firm because of being Jewish. The family panicked about how they were going to support themselves.  Samuel was barely making enough money to put food on the table.

Even then, the food didn’t always make it home. One afternoon through his window, the young artist saw his sister, Sarah, fighting in the street for the loaf of bread that she had just purchased.

Everyone was desperate for food since Warsaw had quickly turned into a starving Jewish ghetto. Nazi soldiers walked the streets now and there was a curfew. Anyone in violation would be shot on sight.  Samuel raced downstairs to father pull his unconscious sister into the house, before the soldiers could take her and do as they wished.  After he knew that Sarah would be alright, Stephen felt so overwhelmed that he locked himself in his room for a whole day and painted the horrifying display, tears running from his eyes, as he painted the crimson markings on Sarah’s face.  That was the first time my nephew realized that he could paint from memory. 

Every day, Samuel’s parents looked for ways to make enough money to feed the family. Jewish people stopped coming to have their portraits painted, because, they could not afford it and the gentiles would no longer come into the ghetto. Thus, the money stopped flowing in from Samuel’s work and his family slowly began to starve. They could hear shooting in the streets and people crying out for mercy. He painted the scene after they left. Samuel heard his own family crying out from hunger and painted their empty freezer box.

One evening, Samuel noticed a woman being dragged down the street kicking and screaming as two Nazis took her, their boots clicking in unison.  Samuel painted this from memory as well.

The next day Stephen painted a starving man, killing a rat to eat, right in front of their house.  My starving nephew did not come downstairs for a few days.

When called down for dinner the next day, he put down his paints and raced down the stairs with Sarah, both approaching starvation.  Each quickly grabbed a slice of bread from the quarter-loaf and swallowed a cooked potato. They all looked around for more food. Instead of crying, they blessed God, thankful for the food they had received.

When Samuel looked up from his plate, his parents and sister were wearing armbands with Jewish stars on them. The boy was filled with sadness.  His father called him a naive artist who should dry his tears and hold his head proud. He went back upstairs in shame, planning to go get his armband tomorrow before getting shot on the spot for not wearing one.

Nazi soldiers went to all Jewish homes, demolishing them and looking for anything of value to pilfer. They dragged the people off to trains.  Tears hit his canvas as much as his brush these days. He saw his neighbor across the street get shot for coming home ten minutes past curfew and painted the image.

 Too scared to leave the house to go get the armband, he remained in his room curled up against the wall waiting for the inevitable.

The inevitable came.  There was a loud knock on the door. The family said a silent prayer of 'Sh’ma,' reaffirming that the Lord is their God and the Lord is One.  Then the door was busted down.

I was told that Sarah was put in a line of young women, who were being abused by the soldiers for their sexual pleasure.

His father was put into a line with other professionals and put on a train. Eventually, he was gassed upon arrival at a death camp.

His mother, my wife was told, was forced onto a train where she suffocated.

Samuel recognized one of the soldiers as Charles, a friend from high school. Charles looked him in the eyes sternly and called out "Take him away."

Perhaps, due to Charles' hidden pity, the house was not ransacked.

Samuel died of starvation at a work camp, never knowing that his paintings would be saved.

Genocide was just that simple.

When the war was ending, some American soldiers stopped at a house to rest. One of them went upstairs to see if there were any cans of food stashed there.

"Come quick," he called to the others. Both raced upstairs and saw the violin that the soldier had pulled out of its hiding spot.

"Wow," one soldier gasped.

“It’s broken. What a shame!”

"Wait a minute, what is that," the other American soldier asked when he saw a corner of paper hanging out of the violin.

They pulled it apart.

Inside, they found ten paintings of the Polish ghetto. They gazed in awe at the atrocities. These pictures told a story of horror, as seen through the eyes of a starving eighteen-year-old painter.

My nephew’s paintings are now on display at a Holocaust exhibit. The first time that I saw it, I was both proud and saddened by what I saw.  Believe me, you are not alone in your fright. We must never forget that war can cause such casualties.

He took my shoulder and led me to my Hebrew School class. I stopped at the picture that had given me so many nightmares and felt a tear roll down my cheek.

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