"Shaping Memory" - Official Poster Marking Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ competition for Holocaust Remembrance Day posters.

 

The competition this year focused on the theme:

"Out of the Depths: The Anguish of Liberation and Rebirth,

Marking 80 Years since the Defeat of Nazi Germany".

​​

For me the significance of the Holocaust lies in the physical and emotional space where the profound internal process of transition occurs: from pain to growth, and from the total loss of everything we hold dear to unfathomable levels of empowerment and rebirth. The striped shirt is symbolic of the suffering and anguish of the Jewish people, robbed of all freedoms, incarcerated and massacred.  All these elements connect graphically and merge with the keys of the piano, emblematic of liberty, joy and love, and of the uplifting power of music.​

​

From the judges' considerations when choosing the winning poster:

The poster depicts the amalgamation of two symbolic images: the striped shirt, which over the years has become one of the iconic emblems of the Holocaust, and the piano, symbol of creativity and culture.  The fusion of these two symbols alludes to the fact that the persecution and mass murder of the Jews in the Holocaust period was perpetrated in the heart of Western civilization by so-called cultured individuals.

​

For more reading visit Yad Vashem website.