Kalman Huberman, painted by his niece, Roz Jacobs
The niece of an
uncle she never
met honors him,
her mother and all
Holocaust victims
in a new exhibit.
Roz Jacobs painting her
family's portrait from the circa-
1930 photo.
The Memory Project will
be on view through Aug. 16
at the Holocaust Memorial
Center in Farmington
Hills. Free with museum
admission or membership.
(248) 553-2400;
holocaustcenter.org .
I
Suzanne Chessler
Contributing Writer
R
oz Jacobs grew up hear-
ing about Kalman, a late
uncle who disappeared
as a child in his Nazi-controlled
Polish homeland.
The boy was younger than her
mother, Anna Jacobs, who spent
the war years in a forced labor
camp and became the only survi-
vor in her immediate family.
The woman located
a photo of herself
at 14 with Kalman
at 11, the way she
remembered him.
The picture had been
kept by neighbors and
was recovered after
her release. Another
photos, shown, was
found later.
The boy's nature
and the woman's
horrific experiences
were revealed gradu-
ally for Anna Jacobs'
American-based
family. As a wife and mother, she
believed it would be wiser to move
slowly into the emotional depth the
others would come to know.
As Roz Jacobs built her profes-
sional career as a painter, she
decided she wanted to memorialize
Kalman and his story for genera-
tions to come. Besides her own
skills, she enlisted the help of
media editor Laurie Weisman.
While the original goal was to
create materials for family, the
project grew into a multimedia
installation that has been shown
at various locations and on public
television. It consists of photo-
graphs, narration, paintings and
videos.
The Memory Project, on view
through Aug. 16 at the Holocaust
Memorial Center in Farmington
Hills, showcases an interactive pre-
sentation enhanced by nine screens
changing content simultaneously.
"The installation tells the
personal story of someone who
survived and is expressed in many
ways and on many levels:' says
Jacobs, 59, who lives in New York
but was in Michigan for the open-
ing of the exhibition.
"We wanted to show the story in
a way that would be interesting and
would teach all ages. We also want-
ed to reach out on a healing level as
well as an intellectual level:'
Symbolism entered into the con-
struction of the piece.
"Since I'm an artist, I also was
looking to make art accessible to
different people says Jacobs, who
learned that some of the guests at
the Michigan opening had survived
in the same camp as her mother.
"When I had the idea to break
the exhibit up into nine different
paintings and nine video moni-
tors, that meant life symbolically
to me. The number 18 is a sym-
bol of life, and I wanted to show
that fragments of someone's life
and fragments that go from the
past to the future also can repre-
sent the whole:'
To go along with the installation,
screens were like making
nine separate movies and
then syncopating them.
"Laurie did edits.
Sometimes, I was the
director while she was
the editor; other times,
she was the director, and
A Huberman family photo taken in
I
was the editor:'
Wloclawek, Poland, circa 1930, was mailed
Weisman, whose first
to an uncle in England. From left, Anna,
encounter
with survivors
Kalman and Esther Huberman and cousin
was
through
the Jacobs
Kayla. Anna was the only survivor.
family, finds new expe-
riences each time she
Jacobs and Weisman developed
watches the videos and
the film Finding Kalman. Jacobs
how the paintings evolved.
worked with her mom to develop
"The time lapse [sequences]
the book Finding Kalman: A Boy in of the paintings being made are
Six Million.
shown without interruption of
Jacobs and Weisman, liv-
the story," Weisman, 58, says. "It's
ing and working together for
metaphorical in that from all the
36 years, have formed Memory
destruction of the Holocaust came
Project Productions, a nonprofit
rebuilding. The paintings are
organization through which they
shown being destroyed and recre-
organize workshops that encour-
ated, and that's part of the process
age participants to create portraits
of rebuilding:'
of Holocaust survivors. They also
Weisman wanted to commu-
have collaborated on short docu-
nicate the sense of optimism and
mentaries.
resilience she admired in survivors.
"The people in Roz's mom's
Jacobs, whose paintings
are exhibited in galleries and
circle are full of joy:' Weisman
museums, graduated from the
explains. "Their focus was on
State University of New York at
whatever little good there was, and
Binghamton and trained privately.
they built on that:'
Weisman, who built a career in
While the exhibit is about
educational publishing, studied
Kalman, it also is meant to come
at Barnard College and earned a
across as a universal story expe-
graduate degree in museum educa- rienced by so many who suffered
tion at the Bank Street College of
family losses.
Education. She led teams that pro-
"I felt a lot because I did so
duced award-winning programs at
much research before this project
Sesame Workshop and Scholastic
began, but Kalman came to life
and held key creative roles at Time
for me in a way he hadn't before
for Kids.
Roz Jacobs says about the results of
"Laurie and I bring very differ-
her focused work. "He had been a
ent skills to the table," Jacobs says.
far-away, legendary figure. Now, I
"I set up a video camera and vid-
think of him as a boy:'
eotaped myself painting. The nine
❑
June 18 • 2015
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