FINE ARTS I `iI n 1974, the picture and the sofa cost about $1,500 each. What do you think they're worth today?" — Albert Scaglione, Park West Gallery Dutch Painter's Work At Yad Vashem Museum CATHRINE GERSON Special to The Jewish News A "The Chagall lithograph is now worth $54,000. The sofa? Perhaps a few hundred dollars. Of course, not every work of art will appreciate so dramatically. That's why so many people come to us. Just as an interior designer helps you put together the right enviroment, we help you build an art collection. And it dosen't have to be expensive. You could easily collect an appreciable work of art for under $1,000 See for yourself. Visit the gallery. It's not at all intimidating. In fact, its quite comfortable Like your favorite sofa." PARK WEST G.A.L.L.E.R.Y Dedicated to the appreciation of art. 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Woodward Ave. Birmingham, MI 48009 FRIDAY, JULY 27, 1990 Call The Jewish News 354-6060 rt is one of the most unlikely legacies left over from the Nazi concentration camps and death factories that dotted Europe a half century ago. Yet the Yad Vashem Art Museum, which opened in Jerusalem eight years ago, contains some 3,000 pain- tings and drawings done in the camps by more than 90 Jewish artists, only a hand- ful of whom survived. The art works, if not the artists, survived because they were concealed or smuggled out of the camps. They attest to the Holocaust in terms more powerful than words. To see them is also to see the reply of the Jews to suffering. A pencil drawing done in 1943 in the Lodz ghetto by Amos Szwarc shows Jews burying their dead in the ghetto cemetery. The lightly penciled drawing of a screaming woman, done by Halina Olumucki in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943, is called "Don't Shoot My Mother." One of the artists who died in Auschwitz was the Dutch painter Leo Kok, whose work is now being shown for the first time in Israel. Kok, only 22 when he died, was born in Belgium and like many other Belgian Jews, fled to Holland at the outbreak of the war. In 1942, he was interned in the Dutch concentration camp Westerbork, from where trains transported Jews weekly to There- sienstadt, the Nazis' model village show-camp, which was for most inmates only a way station to Auschwitz. Although Westerbork served only as a transit camp, the interns were allowed to mount shows, mainly for the amusement of German officers serving in the area. Before he was put on a train, Kok was made a builder of stage sets, which allowed him to steal some moments to paint portraits of his friends and scenes from the camp. His pain- tings, done on small scraps of paper, show the develop- ment of the young artist from simple sketches to mature portraits in charcoal, French coal and color pen- cils. His paintings were smuggled out of Westerbork by a Dutch military policeman, who gave them after the war to Kok's widow, Kitty. She was more fortunate than her husband in that she was not immedi- ately sent on to Auschwitz, but stayed in Theresienstadt where she was liberated at the end of the war. The exhibition of Leo Kok's paintings at the Yad Vashem Museum was prepared by Jaap Nystadt, Kitty's son by her second marriage. Although Kok's works have previously been exhibited in Holland, Kitty said she always wanted them to be shown in Israel. "It is not the same thing at all," she said. "To see Leo's painting here in Jerusalem gives me . . . an incredible feeling." Nystadt included written texts between the paintings on the walls. They are ex- cerpts from the diary of Philip Mechanius, a Dutch journalist interned at Westerbork. One of the most impressive is "Ergens in Nederland," which means "Somewhere in the Nether- lands," a letter written by Mechanius and illustrated by Kok describing the life of the Jews in Westerbork. The Kok exhibition is the first in a series of temporary exhibits planned by the Yad Vashem Art Museum to show the works of Jewish ar- tists who managed to con- tinue painting during the Holocaust. ❑ Jewish Telegraphic Agency LOCAL NEWS Aish HaTorah Sets Events Aish Halbrah/Aleynu will publish an international cookbook of Jewish cooking. There will be sections on in- ternational cooking, gourmet cooking, and a children's sec- tion, along with the basic meat, poultry, fish, salads, deserts, etc. To contribute recipes, call the Aish HarIbrah office. Aish Haabrah/Aleynu will sponsor an arts and crafts fair 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Aug. 19 at the Village Commons Plaza shop- ping center in downtown Far- mington. To participate call the Aish HaTorah office, 948-6900, by July 26.