SHOAH ON EXHIBIT for DONATION 2025
This is how the art could look in a Museum
80 Years this year 2025 since the Liberation of Auschwitz
and the end of National Socialist terror
The DONATION
My art collection consists of paintings on canvas , collages with original holocaust objects , photography from Auschwitz Birkenau , and a short 24 minute documentary film depicting the architecture of evil.
I'm looking for an organisation or Holocaust museum that accepts my donation of these works.
I do not ask for any compensation, just that they pay for the transport of the works from my storage in Italy.
Having over 50 original, one of a kind works and the copyrights to both my Shoah art photography and my short film dealing with the architecture of Evil filmed on a frozen day in a closed down for the day Auschwitz Birkenau.
My intention is to give this work I have dedicated over 45 years to create, to an Institution or Museum that will show my work to the public in order to spread the important message of what happened in order to try to prevent it from happening again. You might think O’ well this will of course never happen again, but wait ! it's already building up to a second Holocaust with all this anti semitism around the world.
Never Again is Now !
Over the last 45 years, this collection of works has gradually evolved. It's vital to keep the story alive and to ensure the truth reaches out, especially during these times of denial.
And with the help of this project that combines my interest in history, humanity, and the urge to share the Holocaust's story loudly and clearly. Moreover, I see it as a warning and wake-up call for the younger generation, which is so easily misled. Today, we face new dangers in the form of New full out anti-Semitism, Neo-Nazism and Islamic fundamentalism, and Islamic terrorism . We all need to take these threats very seriously. We must do everything we can to prevent a repetition of this aspect of modern history. After the attacks on Israel on October 7th 2023 that mirrored the atrocities of the Holocaust. And the retaliation and protection of the state of Israel that created the Gaza war and destruction of a large part of Palestine, parts of the world once again turned Anti- semitic and now again we could hear young people infected by hate shouting " Gas the Jews " I thrilling reminder that history often repeats itself. Now more than ever we must stand tall and strong against these dangerous movements that support Anti Jewish Terrorism.
We can not be bystanders or look the other way like so many were in the 30s and 40s .
Now this time we must be brave.
Today 2025 still works tirelessly with art in all its many forms but my heart is beating especially strong with this art collection for donation. It took so many years to complete and so much money to create and transport and store that I have totally run out of resources.
I have along the way , been attacked for my Jewish work, and even had it partly destroyed. What I still have in storage has for that reason become even more precious.
I also work today for 11 years in symbiosis with my Jewish wife and together we create art for peace and humanity and against all kinds of racism.
My interest in the Holocaust evolved as a child from my grandmother's stories of how, as a Swedish women living part time in Germany, she was once thrown off a tram in Dresden by two SA soldiers- "Sturmabteilung" or Storm Troopers who did not like the Elegant Jewish look of my grandmother.
As a result of these stories and after seeing the documentaries from the liberation of Buchenwald and Bergen Belsen in the cinemas in Sweden as a young boy , I began creating art about its horrors at the age of ten.
My childhood's drawings and watercolours remain in my possession and all depict some of these atrocities.
During the 1920s, my grandmother was good friends with Raoul Wallenberg's mother in Stockholm, so I have also had contact with his family. My Shoah collection includes one of his Swedish military hats, as well as other original memorabilia related to Wallenbergs efforts in Budapest. Additionally, I once met and talked with Per Anger, Raulel Wallenberg's assistant and private chauffeur in 1986 when he visited my art exhibit in New York. Together with Wallenberg, he saved many Jewish people risking their lives in the process. By saving as many as possible with Wallenberg’s Swedish Protection Passports he saved the face of humanity. In 2000, I had the opportunity to meet Elie Wiesel when I exhibited some of my Shoah art at the first International Forum on the Holocaust Conference in Stockholm. As an Absolut Vodka Artist, I donated a Shoah artwork titled "Playing for Time" to its director Michel Roux. It now resides in the collection of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
The Shoah project uses a range of media, including painting, collage on canvas, and sculptural pieces that relate to the persecutions and exterminations, or to the lives of Jewish families before the deportations. Aside from traditional photography and video installations, I also used remnants of the actual places where the crimes took place.
SHORT FILM
The short film "White Silent Hell" documents the remnants of Auschwitz Birkenau's architecture of evil. Filmed and edited chronologically to show the gradual humiliation of those who walked their way to death. In the midst of this, death technicians who handle death machines go about their routines in ice cold, calculated ways.
Several of my works have an educational approach, but others are more poetic in their reflection upon one of mankind's darkest periods. It is impossible to portray the horrors of the Holocaust justly, since the scale of the crime is beyond all comprehension. Despite this, like Mr Wiesel said “we must still try for the sake of our children” and the millions who died. Moreover, I believe that we must approach the subject in different ways in order to reach as many people as possible while also conveying the message to future generations, not just to Jews for whom the Holocaust may be a family memory. We must tell all people, regardless of their faith or nationality, the story of the Shoah so they won't be deceived. While it may be hard to understand, or even accept, the truth cannot be questioned or denied.
Art is only one tool, but often a very effective one, in this mission to "tell the story." Through art, we reach and connect with groups of people who aren't interested in reading books about history or watching documentaries about the Holocaust.
I see my humble involvement, through this collection of pictures, as no more than a handful of dust, yet this dust is a part of our testament, my contribution to collective memory, one could say. I photographed both Auschwitz Birkenau and Kazimierz the Jewish quarter in Krakow during the winter of 2007, and I have combined images so that I can tell the story chronologically. The 'triptychs' in the form of vast landscapes in silence, and crumbling ruins of gas chambers take the form of organic monsters. Images of piled-up shoes, glasses, pots, and pans serve as harsh reminders of people's scattered lives. The walls still bearing inscriptions of pain, and the worn down floors on which thousands walked on their way to a premature death, bear evidence of the agony of those men and women. As if by a razor, the barbed wire cuts through the clear blue sky. There is all of this, frozen in time, covered in frosty ice, like the annual rings of a tree in the forest of remembrance. At the same time, the images contrast with each other while telling the same story. In short, they tell a story of pain. In this frozen landscape, time stands still, but thought and spirit travel freely: A silent hell, in which ashes, and everyday items, such as spoons and forks, hide under a frozen pond.
In silence and with respect for the many victims of this landscape, I entered it.
Thomas Dellert-Bergh
