On Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day, the State of Israel unites in commemorating the six million Jews murdered by the German Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust. It is a day of personal and collective memory, which continues to evolve in Israel's public arena.
Now in its twelfth year, the "Shaping Memory" competition invites a new generation of modern artists to express their sense of the Holocaust’s complex and diverse layers of significance through a visual prism. In this way, expression is given to the artists' approach to Holocaust memory, and to their influence on the shaping of memory in Israel society.
A wide range of artists and designers participated in this year’s competition, which focused on the theme: "Transports to Extinction: The Deportation of the Jews during the Holocaust".
"In keeping with the policy of the "Final Solution", during World War II the Germans and their collaborators uprooted millions of Jews from their homes and deported them to their deaths. This meticulously organized operation was an event of historic significance, obliterating Jewish communities throughout German-occupied territory that had existed for centuries. Vast numbers of Jews were sent straight to the extermination sites, while many others were first taken to ghettos and transit camps. Thus, the cattle – or railway – car, the principal mode of Nazi deportation, became one of the most iconic symbols of the Holocaust. Originally a symbol of progress, globalization and human technological prowess during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the railway car warped into the emblem of the backsliding of human values into the abyss of wholesale mass murder on an unprecedented scale…" (Excerpt from Yad Vashem's rationale for this year's designated theme).
Judges' Panel:
Mr. Yaki Molcho: Multidisciplinary designer, artist and lecturer, Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art
Prof. Merav Salomon: Professor of Illustration, Department of Visual Communication, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design
Mr. Shaul Petel: Director, Israel National Event and Ceremony Authority
Prof. Tamir Shefer: Lecturer at the Faculty of Design, Holon Institute of Technology
Prof. Terry Schreuer: Head of the Visual Communication Department, NB Haifa School of Design
Ms. Eliad Moreh-Rosenberg: Director of the Art Department, Museums Division, Yad Vashem
Ms. Orit Margaliot: Director of the Educational Guiding Department, International School for Holocaust Studies, Yad Vashem
Ms. Inbal Kvity-Ben Dov: Director of the Commemoration and Community Relations Division, Yad Vashem
Ms. Iris Rosenberg: Director of the Communications Division, Yad Vashem
The Winning Poster:
The winning poster was designed by Ms. Or Simone Shawat from Tivon.
Or is the daughter of Natalie and Zion Shawat, and the granddaughter of Henriette, who immigrated to Israel in 1948 from Tunisia after she was expelled together with her family. In Tunisia, the Nazis appropriated the family's textile factory at the beginning of the war, at which point they were forced to produce Yellow Stars.
A graphic design graduate from Studio B6, Or chose to focus on how indifference and dehumanization can lead to the perpetration of atrocities and the erosion of humanity, with an implicit plea for compassion and tolerance.
From the Judges' Considerations when Choosing the Winning Poster:
The poster features an interesting image that incorporates one of the iconic symbols of the Holocaust – the train car. Enveloped in the prisoner numbers of the victims who were brutally ripped and uprooted from their daily lives and sent to their deaths, the image of the train embodies the process in which the humanity of millions of Jews was nullified: In an instant, they were transformed from human beings with discrete identities, to part of a hunted group, stripped of all their rights in a process that ultimately led to their murder.
The numbers embedded in the poster were tattooed on the arms of Auschwitz inmates deported to the camp from all areas of the German Nazi occupation, and sketch the geographical coordinates of the Jewish people sentenced to annihilation.
The steam emitting from the train merges with the smoke of the crematoria, and creates a tension between the vertical stream of rising smoke and the horizontal rush of the train's motion as it propels the individuals trapped inside.
The black mist that dominates the poster symbolizes the total eclipse synonymous with that period, and represents the challenge of preserving memory as the years pass and the survivor generation dwindles.
