Tribute

Portraits of child survivors of the Holocaust

The exhibition titled ‘Tribute: Child Survivors of the Holocaust’ was held at the Jewish Holocaust Centre earlier this year.

When artist Jeffrey Kelson was working on ‘Tribute’, an exhibition of portraits of Holocaust survivors held at the Centre last year, he was moved to explore more deeply the stories of those who were children when the Second World War began. Theirs is a journey of innocence surrounded by evil, and of building a life from a lost childhood. Fewer than ten per cent of Jewish children survived the Holocaust. These are some of the portraits and sketches from the exhibition.

‘TRIBUTE: CHILD SURVIVORS OF THE HOLOCAUST’ shows the lives of child survivors through the medium of a painted portrait and a sketch of the sitter as a young child. In the words of the artist:

In these portraits and sketches I have tried to describe the sitter’s journey: what has been lost and also what has been found. This exhibition is a tribute to the children these survivors once were and to the lives they went on to build. I hope it also raises questions about children in war zones and those suffering persecution today.