Learning from the past ~ lessons for today - Holocaust Education ...

The Holocaust and the Arts in Ireland
The Holocaust as an inspiration for visual art…
Simon Watson, photographer
Simon Watson is an
Irish photographic artist
currently living and
working in New York. In
2006 he was commissioned
by the State Museum at
Auschwitz-Birkenau to
photograph parts of the
buildings and camps. The museum now holds a copy of
this exhibition in its archives.
“A Lingering Presence – Contemporary Photographs of
Auschwitz”, Artist Statement: During the winter of 2006, on
three separate occasions, I visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau
Museum in Poland. With special permission granted by the
museum, I gained access to photograph various sites and
blocks that have not been seen or open to the public since
liberation. It is also my understanding that these sites have
never before been photographed.
This work seeks to expose the lingering past of human
presence at Auschwitz-Birkenau. It examines the notions of
memory, transformation and melancholy.
Despite its transformation into a museum, these blocks have
only a terrible history. For within these spaces history has
remained stagnant, leaving behind the lingering presence of
the past. The floors, walls and ceilings are those of the
Holocaust; and the empty spaces are filled with the memory
of the numberless dead and the perpetrators.
It is often said about memorials that they should serve as a
warning to us all against allowing such evil to happen again.
And in this regard, the work is imperfect, because underlying
the melancholy of the work is the disillusioned acceptance
that it has happened again, that man does not learn from
history, and that despite his capacity to do good, he has a
predilection to evil, and continues to inflict terrible suffering
upon his fellow man. Its imperfection could be said to lie in
the fact that it requires us, in order to pay our respects, to
intrude into the hallowed ground and empty spaces of
Auschwitz-Birkenau – spaces which are so sacred to the
memory of the dead that they should be left in silence until
they, in turn, finally succumb to time and the elements.
And yet, despite the imperfections of any memorial we may
devise, we are impelled to remember and to keep
remembering. And that is what ‘A Lingering Presence’ has
sought to do. It draws us in and exhorts us to remember
those who breathed the air of Auschwitz-Birkenau and other
camps.
Image by Simon Watson
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