AKTUALNOŚCI
Dr.Mark Podwal died on September 13 after a long struggle with cancer. When wefirst met in 2006, I learned that both of our family’s roots originated in thesame shtetl Dabrowa Bialostocka. My paternal grandparents emigrated from there during the 1890s when my 16 year old grandpafeared conscription into theRussian army and his girl friend, my grandma, was fleeing a difficult step-mother. They never spoke to me abouttheir early life and it wasn’t until long after they were gone that I began to study our genealogy. In 1982 I published a yizkor book called Dubrowa: Memorial to a Shtetlthat was substantially based on interviews I conducted with members of the landsmanshaft and several years later,I visited the town along with a small group of landsmen in order to rededicate theabandoned cemetery that we’d had restored.
Mark’smother Dorothy at age eight left with her mother in 1929. At Ellis Island her brother, an artist,was turned away because of a misdiagnosis of trachoma and years later waskilled at Treblinka. When Dorothylearned of this, she had a psychotic break and spent the last eighteen years ofher life in an asylum. Mark became a successful dermatologist in Manhattan, aspecialty that allowed sufficient free time for him to pursue his major avocationas an artist. With no formal art trainingand only one year of Hebrew school,Mark became one of our foremost American Jewish artists,his distinctive work adorning major museums,synagogues, the New York Times’ opinion pages and Metropolitan Opera posters.
InOctober 2015 I received an e-mail message from Dorota Budzińska, a high schoolteacher in Dabrowa who explained that to her the town’s overgrown Jewishcemetery was “like a silent reproach…although surrounded by a fence, it was aneglected and littered site.” She andher students had begun clearing the place and studying their town’s longforgotten Jewish history. Dorota believed that it is vital to teach tolerancethrough joint activities and shared knowledge: “Stereotypes, intolerance andindifference all stem from lack of knowledge.” Now they were planning a JewishCulture Day and having discovered an on-line copy of my memorial book, invitedme to participate. How could I say no? So in May 2016, accompanied by my son Ted and grandsonSam, we visitedDabrowa. But first I invited Mark Podwal to join us; having never been there,he was thrilled andarranged to drive in from Prague.
Markwas so moved by our brief visit that in the first three months after returninghome, he produced a series of eighteen vividly colored drawings that hedescribed as a “visible diary”of his trip. The imagesdidn’t focus on the destroyed town per se, but on thevanished world before the Holocaust and, in his distinctive whimsical style,they displayed themes typical of Poland along with familiar Jewish symbols. Thecollection was exhibited at venues in the United States and Europe andpublished in a small book called Kaddishfor Dabrowa Bialostocka with text both in Englishand Polish.
Laterthat year when Mark’s collection was exhibited at the Museum of the Eldridge StreetSynagogue, I was invited to introduce him and what follows here is extracted from my speech.
Mark Podwal’s whimsical pictures challenge us to think beyond theobvious. Their warm colors and absence of stark images belie conventionalperceptions of dark times in the shtetl. In order to appreciate the eighteenpictures in this collection, what’sneeded is a sense of context
— not only concerninggeneral history but in his case, and mine, personalconnections to a tiny shtetl called Dabrowa that is located in northeastPoland. Dabrowa means oak forestand there are several other Dabrowasin Poland but as a result of shifting borders, now the official name is DabrowaBialostocka after the large city that’s about 30 miles south.
Until our visit three monthsago, Dabrowa was an imaginedplace for Mark from where his mother and severalother family members had come. Assuch, these pictures which he did after revisiting his roots provide anostalgic vision of the lost world of his mother’s youth, but these simpleappearing pictures are not simplistic. Indeed, they challenge us to look beyondtheir curious juxtapositions in order to consider a more complex and nuancedpicture…..
Last October (2015) I received an e-mail from a high school teacherin Dabrowa who’d read my book on-line. She explained that her studentshad been studying their town’s history and now were planning a seminarabout its lost Jewish community….Because I knew that Mark shared some of thesame roots, I invited him to join me and on the appointed day he drove in from Prague.One of my sons and a grandsonalso joined me in Warsaw,a van was sent to pick us up and we had a remarkable day in our family’sshtetl. And as a result of Mark’sexperience, now we have his splendid Kaddishfor Dabrowa Bialostocka.
Each of the eighteen picturesin this collection tells a different story. In one Mark incorporates an ancient Polishlegend that white storks bring good luck. Even today, people pray for thestorks to fly home for if one nests on your roof, it’s a good sign.
Although Mark denies that’s what he meant, I like tothink of the white storks as metaphors for the former Jewish neighbors who flewaway and someday may return and bring luck — perhaps we were/are the storks. Idon’t mean to romanticize or idealize shtetl life. It was neither all rosy norall grim and long before the Holocaust there were pogroms and anti- Semitism — yes, even in sleepylittle Dabrowa. In March, 1939 there was aminor pogrom there inspired by rumors of Jews having killed a gentile boy touse his blood to make matzahs. So the blood libel slander still was alive justsix months before the onset of World War II.
No doubt, the present citizens of Dabrowa will be baffled by Mark’sinclusion of so many religious and cultural Jewish symbols but, in truth, itwas religion that bound the old community together and this theme runs through many of his pictures. Perhapsit’s best illustrated in his depictionof the shtetl encircled by what appears to be a lasso in the shape of agiant tefillin. Although life wasdictated by religious observance, some Jews felt strangled and as soon as theywere in sight of the Statue of Liberty, many males tossed their tefillin into NewYork Harbor. In my grandfather’s case, when he spotted a street sign inBrooklyn, he jettisoned his clumsy Russian surname Neviadomsky in favor of theYankee-sounding Nevins, presumably after Nevins Street in Brooklyn.
Today life in Dabrowa is very different than it was in my grandparent’s time. From our recent experience, it wasgratifying that many of the current residentsseemed eager to learn from the past and were willing to move on in a spirit of friendship. Similarevents are happening in other places as well, and some speak optimistically ofa Jewish renaissance in Poland.
Others worry that the current nationalistic political climate mightlead to a return of bad times, but in our brief time in Dabrowa,we were greetedwith warmth and respect. In turn, our message to them stressedreconciliation rather than recrimination and in my speech there, my final wordto them was Shalom. Finally, I think it’s appropriate that Mark describes thiscollection as a Kaddish because, just like in the ancient prayer, his art is forwardlooking. Even as his pictures fondly recall the past, they yearn for a bettertime to come — in Dabrowa, in Poland and everywhere.
Thatwasn’t the end of the story. Mark wished to display his pictures in Poland andalso to donate one thousand copies of his book to individuals both in Dabrowa and elsewhere. He arranged to revisit in June 2018 and this time it washis turn to invite me to accompany him. We met in Warsaw and were driven nearlythree hours to Dabrowa. For me the highlight of the day was when Dorota’s classwalked us through town and stopped at former Jewish sites to tell us whatthey’d learned. When we arrived at the cemetery, several students held upenlarged photos of people who were buried there and spoke briefly about each ofthem. I was delighted that one picture was of my great, grandfather Moshe Aaron Zaban, the man whom I’m named afterbut never met. No doubt they’d found it in my yizkor book but I was unable toidentify his grave, nor could Mark find any of his relatives.
In2016 a huge collection of Mark Podwal’s work was published. It was titled Reimagined.45 Years of Jewish Art and in his Introduction Mark wrote “although museum directors and curatorshave urged me to broaden my subject matter by going beyond Jewish content, myheart is with the Jewish experience.” The Forward, written by his great friendElie Wiesel began “If you like to dream, then enter the dreams of Mark Podwal.He will lead you through the centuries as through a gallery where you areawaited by a world both strange and familiar…..His stories, sometimes joyfuland sometimes melancholic, are recounted in a style and language quite his own;they will make you smile.
Through them you will discover or rediscover recollections, which — withoutyou being aware — are part of your collective memory.”
In the Preface CynthiaOzick described Mark as “one of those startling souls… who can imagine, throughthe power of a unifyingeye, connections that are so new that they shake the brain intofresh juxtapositions of understanding.” She suggested that his work seems to bederived from “an unearthly ink pot….as when Jerusalem floatsup from leaves of a sacred text or when letters of Torahdance through the ether.”
Mark Podwal was unique. He will be missed. Hisart will remain.
MN 9/18/2024