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Reichskommissar - Himmler

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Meet Heinrich Himmler. [link]

He was part of a special branch of the SS (Schutzstaffel) [link]

I could write a lot about him, but provided links instead. You can read about him...
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This is from wikipedia... just a summary, there is a lot more to read if you desire:
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (help·info) (October 7, 1900 – May 23, 1945) was the commander of the German Schutzstaffel (SS) and one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany. As Reichsführer-SS he controlled the SS and the Gestapo.

Himmler became a leading organizer of the Holocaust. As founder and officer-in-charge of the Nazi concentration camps and the Einsatzgruppen death squads, Himmler held final command responsibility for implementing the industrial-scale extermination of between 6 and 12 million people. This was aimed particularly at Jews, but also against those of many other nationalities, races and conditions Nazi ideology considered to be suitable for killing, or Sonderbehandlung ("special treatment") as gas chamber murder was euphemistically known within the SS.
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I was powerfully affected by reading about the concentration camps. This piece is personal as well as about what it appears to be about. The personal bit is about me growing up, in a world that is beyond cruel, in some capacities. No, I am not a jew, or a descendant of any concentration camp victims. It is symbolic for me. But I feel deeply too for the human wrongs done. The drawn elements are boundaries and squeezing me and this universe together, bound and forced to coexist, in the same space.

The two main images are 1) [right] Himmler and the SS, 2) [left] the same image, a reversal, pale in silver, staring back at the real image. This has some meaning for me. Who is more real? Who has more right, to live, to shine, to occupy the space? The pale shadow? The heavier solid image? Who am I? Am I either? Am I both? Am I capable of what they did? I ask myself these things...

The monkey. He crosses both solid and shadow - both worlds. He represents the downtrodden side of me/you/us... The side that is instinctual, unknowing, reactionary, and also innocent. He is primitive and some would say our ancestor. Whether you believe in evolution or not is irrelevant. The other reason for the monkey is the way Himmler sees him. He sees him as something to exterminate. The monkey is the jew, the pole, the slav, the unperfect, the non-germanic. So the monkey sybolizes also something Himmler sees as something to destroy because it is "different."

So in conclusion. This piece works for me on two levels. As personal struggle in my idea of self growing up. The other level, the more obvious... The evil and wrongness of the nazi/ss ideology. I hope you like it/hate it! Sorry for writing so much :(

The medium is screen print on paper. Paper size is 26"x40". Red hands finger painted. Everything else screen printed. This is not in any way a digitally manipulated. It is all screen print on paper. You remember art on real paper, right? :)
Image size
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© 2007 - 2024 littleblackduck
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aranylapi's avatar
Do you know the feeling when your heart becomes suddenly smaller and you can't breathe for a second? Well that's what I felt after reading your comment and then looking at this in full view. I was at a film festival in June and I saw some movies about war and concentration camps. One of them was about the Holocaust. It was really terrifying to see the movies, but I'm sure that's nothing compared to actually being there.
The red hands are great and the fact that he's holding his gloves in one hand. It makes me think of duels:giggle:, but in a bigger scale. And well people had duels because it was a matter of honour. Jews didn't know why they were hated and put in concentration camps. Why did they have to take children too? I don't understand. This movie I saw was from the point of view of a teenager who got to a concentration camp. He didn't even know what it meant to be a Jew, at one point he was even angry that he was one. So sad:(