Support for the Holocaust Memorial Day: 80 Candles Quilt project has been amazing! Organisations including The Multi Faith Centre, Ashbourne Methodist Church Craft & Chat Group and the National Holocaust Centre & Museum have provided workshop space; a steady stream of financial donations have been trickling in via the crowdfunding page (please keep donating) and participants have been incredibly generous with their time, creating beautiful, meaningful dedications. I am delighted to share that the project is also benefiting from research support as Yael Sacker has joined the Project Team.
Yael is an International Relations master’s graduate from University of Birmingham and has been beavering away behind the scenes working on research to help shape the project. Researching a broad spectrum of individuals affected by the holocaust, Yael has created a selection of easy-to-read profiles so that participants who don’t have the skills or time to do their own research can still take part.
Yael Sacker, Research Support
I have a passion for research which I am excited to apply to this project. The HMD project is one close to my heart as many of my ancestors perished in the Holocaust, and this project is wonderful chance to amplify their and other victims’ stories and voices.
Participants have been enjoying reading the profiles and a number have been selected as the focus of their creative contributions. These will be available at the last remaining workshops at The Multi Faith Centre on Tuesday 12th November, The National Holocaust Centre and Museum on Thursday 14th November and to student Art Ambassadors at Queen Elizabeths Grammar School who are taking part in the project in the coming weeks.
Trying to pick just one person to represent in a quilt in memorial to those affected by the Holocaust is daunting. As a champion for telling stories through the creation of textiles I knew I wanted to honor a fellow ‘sewist’, someone who had stitched something whilst in a concentration camp.
Meet Sonja Jaslowitz, a young German speaking, Jewish Romanian girl whose creative talent lives on through her poetry and embroidered belt.
Sonja’s story…
On 4th June 1942, Sonja Jaslowitz, together with her German speaking Jewish parents, Lotte and Adolf Jaslowitz, were deported to Cariera de Piatra Concentration and Camp.[1]
Sonja was just 15 years old. She left behind her home, a first floor flat owned by her grandmother, in the bustling town of Czernowitz, Romania. [2] Czernowitz had a large Jewish community, but as fascism rose in popularity across Romania, antisemitism increased. [3] Between 1941 and 1944 approximately three hundred thousand Jews and Roma perished in the Romanian administered region.[4]
Sonja and her family were sent eastward to a region that came to be known as Transnistria. Transnistria was a ‘holding’ or ‘containment’ place for deported Jews, a ‘dumping ground’ to await mass transfer across the Bug River.[5] The family spent time in the makeshift Cariera de Piatra concentration camp. Once a granite rock quarry, inmates found ‘shelter in wrecked guard and storage sheds that had been built partially into the rock’. [6] More than five hundred people were crammed into wooden barracks built to accommodate just eighteen. [7] From here they were sent to Obodovka Concentration Camp and then onto the Tiraspol ghetto. With limited documentation we can only imagine how Sonja and her parents managed to survive the brutal environment. Together they would have faced deprivation, starvation, dehydration and bitterly cold temperatures.
Amongst all this horror Sonja chose to create, and perhaps more remarkably some of her creations survived. These surviving acts of resistance include a black blanket-stitched belt embroidered with whimsical flowers, mushrooms and quaint scenes of houses with picket fences, trees, fluffy clouds and sunshine; and a body of poetry written in German, Romanian and French. Composed in the camps and ghettos of Transnistria her poetry gives us a glimpse of the girl she was, thoughtful, observant, resourceful, sarcastic, courageous, defiant.
Using simple verses and metaphorical phrases Sonja conveys her deeply felt emotional state of pain and longing whilst painting a picture of her surroundings. She gives agency to hope, nurturing her confidence and mental energy in order to survive.
Sonja and her parents were liberated in 1944 and repatriated to the Romanian capital, Bucharest. Here she typed an illustrated some of her poems. Sadly, she was killed during the shelling of Bucharest, April 1944. Collateral damage victim of shrapnel from Allied bombs intended for German-controlled oil installation near Romanian capital.[10] Sonja’s father died shortly afterwards having contracted tuberculosis in the ghetto. Her mother moved to England, bringing with her Sonja’s creative works.
How would Sonja feel about her work being shared? Did she create privately for herself or intentionally to share her story? Was she determined to document her experience, exercising her own limited agency within the confines of Nazi rule, or simply filling time?
There is a vulnerability in creating and being creative, works set free into the world can easily be dismissed, ignored, criticized or misunderstood. But there is also power in creating art; the power to tell a story and share ones inner most self for others to see. It provides space to contemplate and regulate emotion and room for play and experimentation. Sonja’s embroidered belt is what drew me to find out more about her, I was sure an object of such whimsy and beauty created in such horror had a story to tell. I wonder what Sonja would think of the square I am dedicating to her?
Square one, work in progress. ‘Remembering Sonja Jaslowitz’, Laura Burrill, linen on calico.
[5] Hirsch, K, Spitzer, L, ‘Small Acts of Repair: The Unclaimed Legacy of the Romanian Holocaust’, Journal of Literature and Trauma Studies, Volume 4, No 1-2, Spring/Fall, 2015 p.13-42p25
[6] Hirsch, K, Spitzer, L, ‘Small Acts of Repair: The Unclaimed Legacy of the Romanian Holocaust’, Journal of Literature and Trauma Studies, Volume 4, No 1-2, Spring/Fall, 2015 p.13-42P.27
[9] From poem ‘Longing’, S. Jaslowitz (Translated) Hirsch, K, Spitzer, L, ‘Small Acts of Repair: The Unclaimed Legacy of the Romanian Holocaust’, Journal of Literature and Trauma Studies, Volume 4, No 1-2, Spring/Fall, 2015 p.13-42, p.29.
[10] Hirsch, K, Spitzer, L, ‘Small Acts of Repair: The Unclaimed Legacy of the Romanian Holocaust’, Journal of Literature and Trauma Studies, Volume 4, No 1-2, Spring/Fall, 2015 p.13-42, p.14.
What is your story and how would you like it to be told? If you could be represented in your local museum, how would you choose to be celebrated? These are the questions being asked and documented in a giant slow stitched patchwork ‘Quilt of Connection’.
Quilts of Connection is a response to Derby Museum & Art Galleries’ exhibition History makers: Unfolded. The exhibition acts as a provocation for conversation, asking the people of Derby to reflecting upon the stories already told within the museum space and importantly what stories are missing and should be told. Through a series of workshops, together with Derby Museums I am inviting the people of Derby and Derbyshire to join us in creating a giant slow stitched patchwork. This work is a chance for individuals to share their personal stories, their journey, their connection and contribution to the area.
What piece of fabric would you choose to represent your story? It could be as simple as a scrap in your favorite colour, a fragment of clothing from an important occasion, an heirloom piece of family history or a scrap of fabric that reminds you of an important memory. Repurposing cherished or unwanted, leftover and discarded textiles I invite participants to incorporate the stories and memories held within cloth to document important personal narratives and express inner voice. The beautiful, tactile objects created then act as a tangible invitation for further conversation, discussion and remembrance.
The process of slow stitching is very simple using the most basic of stitches including running, back and seed stitch. Piece by piece the added fragments of fabric layer to create a collage style textile which will represent the participants as a community.
The collage will be worked onto reclaimed textiles associated with human connection including bed sheets and tablecloths, drawing on the intimacy of the objects, and the stories they contain of love, friendship, family, loss, loneliness, migration and community.
The quilt will be worked in a continuous piece, attaching each next required length of base cloth to the last. Once completed the whole work will be cut up into useable quilts and backed. One will be retained by the museum; the rest will be given to those in the community in need of comfort and support so that they can be wrapped in the shared history of Derby and the warmth of our community connection.
Alongside workshops with organisations including Maison Foo and the Multi-Faith Centre Derby a series of public workshops are planned to take place at the Museum and Art gallery. These are free drop-in sessions. I hope to see you there! Feel free to bring along a fragment of fabric to add to the quilt or enjoy delving into my vast collection of reclaimed and vintage textiles which will be available and free for participants to use.
Upcoming public drop-in workshops:
Derby Museum & Art Gallery – Sunday 28th January 1.30-.30pm
Derby Museum & Art Gallery – Saturday 9th March 1.30-3.30pm
Derby Museum & Art Gallery – Saturday 16th March 1.30 -3.30pm
Every Stitch A Story 