10/18/2022
Join us virtually for tomorrow's lecture with Professor Emeritus David Scrase, who will discuss the life, work, and writings of photographer Bernard Gotfryd (1924-2006) as part of our "Artists and Immigrants Series".
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In his life before immigration, Bernard Gotfryd became a master of photography. As Poland was engulfed by World War II, with the camps and genocide dominant, Gotfryd was deprived of camera and darkroom for four years. After his immigration to the U.S., where he became a renowned photojournalist for 𝘕𝘦𝘸𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘬, he ultimately responded to his mother’s last words as she was deported to her death—write about everything so that the world knew the truth of the Holocaust. In the 1980s, he published his first tales in 𝘔𝘪𝘥𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮 and 𝘕𝘦𝘸𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘬. Gotfryd's book 𝘈𝘯𝘵𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘍𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘳: 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘖𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘛𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘏𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘵 was first published in 1990. With no camera during the Holocaust, Gotfryd was unable to record what happened as he went from the house he grew up in, to the ghetto, to a series of camps, until he was liberated in May 1945. But, his experiences remained with him as striking images with clear-cut details. With his “photographer’s eye”, Gotfryd rescued those images, each tale vividly providing a back-drop, scenery, and action of the dramatic events.
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This free program takes place on Wed., Oct. 19 at 6 pm EDT. Registration is required through link in bio.
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Born in England in 1939, David Scrase made Germany, its language and culture, not least its history, his career. After having bounced around in England, Germany, France, Switzerland, and Austria, he immigrated in 1969 to the United States, where he became Professor of German and the founding Director of the Carolyn and Leonard Miller Center for Holocaust Studies at the University of Vermont.
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Image: Bernard Gotfryd, Chaim Gross sculpts a portrait of artist Karl Knaths in Provincetown, 1965. Archives
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Image description: Color photograph of a man sitting for an artist. In the center is a clay bust in progress.
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