Much has been written about Bak’s identification with and emotional response to the young boy seen in a now iconic photograph taken during the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto in 1943. In the print, which was part of a documentary photo album created for Heinrich Himmler (the Stroop Report), the frightened child faces the camera with raised arms, mimicking the adults who stand behind him. He was approximately the same age as Bak was, wearing shorts and a coat similar to Bak’s ghetto clothing. A multitude of complex interpretative reflections, including the killing of his close friend Samek Epstein as well as the murder of over 1.7 million other children during the Holocaust, have inspired Bak to create over 120 uniquely poignant paintings involving the raised-arm image of this doomed child.
This canvas presents four nonviable reconstructed little boy torsos made from stone and wood. The three (a trinity) similar-sized images rest on a stone wall (altar) which is bound by a yellow ribbon reminiscent of crime scene tape used to demarcate murder locations. Interspersed throughout the painting are a number of wooden stakes appearing as or implying pairs. The large frontal and lateral pieces contribute to a sense of barrier restriction, while those centrally integrated with the figures have the combined ambiguity of crosses (crucifixion with bullet hole stigmata in several hands) or the “x-ed out” of death. If the largest of these were viewed as a cross, it would contribute to an altar scene with the smaller cross being carried in during a service.
The oversized little boy is composed of painted wooden slats (broken rainbow/broken covenant), a featureless face, with a yellow star attached to his chest, perhaps to specifically symbolize the large population (“Cumulative Data”) of Jewish children senselessly murdered, as well as the resulting religious enigma...WHY? The disarticulated white arm of the smaller central image is positioned to invite us into this most abhorrent historical reality. Let us engage, acknowledge that children are the most vulnerable in all conflicts, and seek to create a peaceful world within which our children can flourish.
Dr. Carl M. Herbert (Guest Writer)
BAK a Day, January 12, 2024
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