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March 17, 2006
Resistance on canvas
Paintings mark bravery of Jewish women in war.
VERONIKA STEWART
In the basement of Hinda Avery's Kerrisdale home, overhead windows
allow light to stream in, illuminating dozens of paintings stacked
against cement walls. Some are wrapped in clear plastic. All await
their upcoming unveiling.
Avery's paintings, like most, have a story to tell. All portraits,
they depict female members of her family dressed in Second World
War resistance regalia, with sombre gazes, the Star of David reading
Jude, Jew, adorned on their uniforms. Avery said by using the star
in her work, she has appropriated it from its original negative
Nazi context and reinterpreted it as a symbol of pride.
Avery's paintings depict her family, the Rosens, as members of the
resistance; a role she said would have been unlikely, as she believes
the women in her family probably didn't have the stamina to participate
in the movement. But despite an aspect of make-believe in Avery's
artwork, in this way, she said, she is able to find a modern connection
to her Jewish relatives – those who were killed in the war,
and those who have passed on since.
"I didn't want to portray them as victims," Avery said.
"I wanted to portray them as resistance fighters ... how strong
they were, and how they risked their lives."
Because Avery could find no present memorial to the women in her
family, she said she felt a need to connect again with her female
ancestors, her mishpachah (family), a need that also coincided
with an urge to take up painting again, after virtually abandoning
the pastime.
"When I retired, and all of my life practically, I was wondering
about my mother's family who were murdered by Nazis," Avery
reminisced. "So when I retired, I went to Poland to learn how
they were exterminated, but I couldn't find any answers ... I became
aware that there was no mention of my family, even in the town they
lived in."
Avery says that as a high school teacher, and later a professor
of women's studies at Simon Fraser University, the University of
British Columbia and Okanagan University College, she had little
energy to devote to artwork. After retiring a couple of years ago,
however, she was able to rediscover the hobby. Since then, she has
completed three series of paintings devoted to the Rosen women portraying
female resistance fighters. Avery has used the names and anecdotes
of 36 real women from the Holocaust resistance as a basis for her
paintings.
Her first series is devoted to her mother, herself, her aunt and
sister and depicts the women in various uniforms, as well as a couple
of portraits that depict the women in happier times.
In her second series, Avery adds more of her female relatives to
the pictures. Cousins are included in the paintings, and the uniforms
they wear are given more color.
"I was tired of them looking severe," Avery said. "I
wanted a relief from the atrocity and how venomous the Holocaust
was, so I painted them with a little bit of a smile on their faces,
looking confident."
In her third series, Avery combines pictures of the faces of Jewish
women with those of some of the female guards at the concentration
camps.
"While I was visiting concentration camps, I went to Ravensbrück,
the female camp and, at the time, one of the historians was looking
at having an exhibit of the female guards," Avery says. "I
wanted to show the guards as ominous women, and how ordinary women
were turned into monsters."
Avery's show, her first exhibit, entitled The Rosen Women in the
Role of the Resistance Fighter, opens March 22 at the Regent College
Lookout Gallery at the University of British Columbia and runs until
April 15.
Veronika Stewart is a student intern at the Independent.
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