ABMF is proud to announce a new partnership with the National Liberty Museum in Philadelphia. The National Liberty Museum has opened “Forbidden Art” — an exhibit of 20 images created by Jewish and Polish prisoners of Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945. While Nazis commissioned some of the art made in the camp, this art was made in secret despite the grave risk to the artists.
This exhibition is part of the larger mission of ABMF to spread awareness about the atrocities committed at Auschwitz and to restore and preserve the art, artifacts, and architecture of the former concentration camp.
The exhibit includes art made to document the brutality of Auschwitz and art that contrasts people’s lives during imprisonment with how they lived before. There are works that helped prisoners imagine escaping and even caricatures of German guards, meant to offer humor in the midst of tragedy.
Liberty Museum CEO Gwen Borowski hopes that attendees will learn that being a bystander to bigotry, and failing to intervene, makes you complicit. She wants people to speak out against injustice. “We are not partisan,” she said of the museum. “It’s about protecting this fragile freedom and liberty that we have. It’s art that tells an unbelievable story of resistance and survival and identity.”
If you are interested in bringing this exhibit to your community, please contact Maria Zalewska.