"Her Voice" for cello and piano
By Nicholas Wing, composer
Copyright 2013 Nicholas Wing. All Rights Reserved.
Hebrew translation by Shoshana Mitzman

"A Garret to Live in was a Luxurious Apartment in the Lodz Ghetto"
1946, oil on canvas
by DAVID FRIEDMANN (1893-1980)
Painter, Graphic Artist, and Holocaust Survivor

"A Garret to Live in was a Luxurious Apartment in the Lodz Ghetto"
Copyright ©1989 Miriam Friedman Morris
All Rights Reserved

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,
Gift of Miriam Friedman Morris
The David Friedmann painting is from the art series,
"Because They Were Jews!"
www.ushmm.com

"Her Voice" for cello and piano
By Nicholas Wing, composer
Performed by Michael Samis, cello
Evan Booher, piano

Dedicated to Michael Samis and to the life and legacy of his grandmother, Sabina Warshawska Rosenzweig, a survivor of Auschwitz. Sabina dreamed of becoming a professional singer, and her parents planned to send her to music conservatory, but instead she and her family were sent to Auschwitz. After liberation Sabina took a job as a seamstress in order to provide for her family, and never realized her dream. It is Michael's artistic mission to be the voice through his cello that his grandmother Sabina never had the opportunity to realize.

I was struck by David Friedmann's painting, "A Garret to Live in was a Luxurious Apartment in the Lodz Ghetto," and did not know the context of the painting when I contacted his daughter Miriam Friedman Morris. The depth of color and the expressions of each face seemed perfectly matched with the nuances of Michael Samis' emotional and dynamic performance. In the midst of such terrifying darkness and autobiographical tragedy, David Friedmann seems to express a beautifully reminiscent and mystical golden-white hue. I could not hold back the tears when I later realized that among the last times that David Friedmann had seen his beloved daughter Mirjam Helene and wife Mathilde was in a garret (attic) in the Lodz Ghetto, Poland.

“Apart from the consequences for the Jews, for my poor family, the evacuation to the Ghetto Litzmannstadt [Lodz] gave my eyes, my inner being a new direction. I saw something new, something that never happened before in this century. I experienced this tragedy not only with my eyes but buried it into my inner being, into my memory to tear out at a more peaceful time. These were powerful images that I saw – to give form to all that misery – to show it to the world – this was always my intent.”

-David Friedmann, September 23,1945


To learn more about the life and legacy of artist David Friedmann, please visit the links below:

PAINTING TO SURVIVE – The Work of David Friedmann:
[ Ссылка ]

Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies - David Friedmann:
[ Ссылка ]

"BECAUSE THEY WERE JEWS!" art series - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM)
[ Ссылка ]

"Artist David Friedmann, A Daughter's Search for Lost and Stolen Art."
[ Ссылка ]

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