Giving color and dignity to those who had it stripped away

The topic of this project is something I’ve explored starting back in high school in the early 2000’s.  I was struck that when learning about World War II and the holocaust, my teacher didn’t mention other groups of people that were persecuted and murdered by the Nazis, such as Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses, political dissidents, and queer people, especially gay men.  I remember jumping up to volunteer information to add to my sophomore year history teacher’s lesson, and the teacher allowed me to teach the entire class with what I knew about the subject.  Artistically, I began to explore the subject in college, creating a series of artworks showing scenes from concentration camps and information about the abject horror, experimentations, and torture the “pink triangles” were put through (The pink triangle was a patch worn by gay concentration camp prisoners).  Most egregious of all to my young mind was finding out that many queer people who were rescued when the camps were liberated by the Allies were sent back into prison for the crime of merely being gay.  Reparations were never made to any queer victim of the holocaust, despite the attempt of some survivors to receive recognition later in their lives.  Many had to live their lives in shame and were shunned by former family and neighbors.  

In 2014, I was working three part time jobs and felt my life needed structure and direction.  At this time I went deeper into my research of the treatment of LGBT people during the Nazi reign, finding every book and film I could to learn more.  I decided I needed to do more to educate people about this often overlooked part of the holocaust and that my art was the best catalyst for this.  In sketchbooks I wrote down as many names of victims and survivors I could find, information about them, and began drawing studies of their faces if there were photographs available.  It became my quest to draw or paint every single one of them. 

In 2023 I applied for and received a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council to assist in my work on the pink triangle portraits. With it I have been able to massively expand the scope of my project , hugely helped by a weeklong research trip to the United State Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives in Washington DC.

With each portrait, the original black and white photos are transformed back into color, adding soul and depth to an often soulless concentration camp or police intake photograph. The striped pajamas are stripped away and the queer human underneath is presented as a real, living person who existed and just wanted to live their life true to themselves. I hope to restore some of their humanity and give them that chance, if only in memory of them and by sharing their story.