Babi Yar and Auschwitz in the Works of Jewish Artists and Writers: Holocaust Witnesses

Many Jewish writers and artists were deeply traumatized by the Holocaust and devoted their works to this topic. I will focus in my presentation on three case studies: the literary works of the Yiddish writer Itsik Kipnis and the Russian Jewish writer Ilya Ehrenburg, and the paintings of the Jewish artist Zinovii Tolkachev. All of them were Holocaust witnesses and created their works during or immediately after World War II.

Itsik Kipnis, as many other Kievan Jews who returned from evacuation, came to Babi Yar on the third anniversary of the tragedy on September 29, 1944. Kipnis wrote on the same day his essay Babi Yar, where he described the tragedy of Kievan Jewry and called for Jewish national revival.

Ilya Ehrenburg was a war correspondent. Kiev was his native city and Babi Yar was “a personal wound” for him. Ehrenburg wrote his poem Babi Yar (1945) and novel Buria (The Storm, 1946-47) in which he described the common fate of Jews during the Holocaust “joins Kiev with Paris, Babi Yar with Auschwitz.”

During the war Kievan Jewish artist Zinovii Tolkachev served in the Red Army. Tolkachev came with the Army to the Nazi death camps Majdanek and Auschwitz immediately after their liberation. The artist depicted the horror of the camps in his albums Majdanek (1944-45) and Flowers of Auschwitz (1945).

The works of Jewish artists and writers - Holocaust witnesses had a profound moral impact and raised public awareness about the Shoah and other crimes of the Nazi regime.