In his Perpetrators, Sid Chafetz, an artist and master printmaker who has dedicated his professional career to creating works of art of profound social significance, presents a series of portraits of what
might be called “ordinary people” who executed Hitler’s ghoulish plans. Although he often works in woodcuts, for this subject, he chose monotone lithographs as his predominate medium. Without question, it is appropriate because there is no attempt at artifice; the people and their brief biographies are revealed as documentary facts—an aesthetic decision that commands a heightened
sense of reality.
Sid Chafetz’s Perpetrators depicts the complicity of industrialists, businessmen, professionals,
soldiers, churchmen, physicians, lawyers and bureaucrats who implemented and executed the
Nazi’s diabolical schemes. It is another profound statement by a committed artist who attempts to
come to grips with the Holocaust, just as all of us—survivor, child of survivors, Jew, gentile,
German, American or citizen of the planet— have tried to do. Chafetz forces us to recognize the
boundaries of individual responsibility and personal culpability. His message is clear: The
Holocaust happened and these are the kinds of people who did it. Implicit is a warning: It could
happen again. Be vigilant and know that we can be manipulated by our political leaders. |
