AS THE SON OF A SURVIVOR of the Nazi concentration camps, I grew up hearing the first-hand testimony of a witness to humanity s darkest moment. Dr. Mengele supplanted Dr. Suess, and the Big Bad Wolf did a lot more than huff and puff. Sleeping with the lights on might keep the Boogie Monster at bay, but nothing could beat back the horror of being tucked under the covers by an arm branded with death camp numbers.
As my father left my bedside and headed out the door, he would pause and turn back toward me. Did you say your prayers? he would invariably ask.
Did I what?!
How can you bequeath me such an encounter with the devil, and expect me to believe in a loving God?
Do you really believe in a happy ending?
Yet somehow, he did. He and countless other survivors experienced hell on earth, and still found the strength to believe.
What happens when a generation grows up in comfort on the heels of so much horror? How do I make peace between my tranquil existence and my father s brutal past? When the life you are bequeathed does not resemble the life you are leading, there exists a great inner dilemma. Moreover, I am raised, not only to believe in, but to embrace the very God responsible for the atrocities of my father s generation.
It is this struggle to have faith in the midst of madness, and the unique Jewish response to it, that is the subject of Black is a Color, a collection of works, rendered through art and prose, that express how traditional Jews found and still find hope and faith in the midst of the deepest darkness.
It is an illumination of man s post-Holocaust spiritual stature; a search for the happy ending .
Moments after entering the world on March 24th, 1963 in Los Angeles, California, the infant is cradled in his father's arms, the left one tattooed with the concentration camp number B-14529. Eight days later, his godfather tenderly holds the newborn with a similarly branded arm, the number A-11410 clearly visible beneath the intermittent stripes of his jet black tefillin. The child's father and godfather stand side-by-side as the child is given the name, Shlomo, in memory of their very own brother, who was shot by a fleeing Nazi guard just one day before the camp was liberated.
Twenty-five years later the child has his own son, and names him Dov, after his murdered grandfather, A-11409, whose body finally weakened during a cruel winter march. His position in line continued receding until he met with the executioner's bullets at the rear of the procession: - How he met thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee -
Stan (Shlomo) Lebovic studied at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. He has owned several illustrative service companies, and before devoting himself exclusively to Black is a Color he published a children's book, which received a Toy of the Year Award and was featured in Disneyworld and on the QVC Television Network.
Upon completion of Black is a Color, Mr. Lebovic's spiritual appetite and perpetual existential angst set their sights on what is arguably the most widely read piece of literature in the Jewish world: The Passover Haggadah.
Titled Out of Bounds, his interpretation of the Haggadah has been hailed as a work:... not only [to] be read but [to] be studied, absorbed and savored ...
Mr. Lebovic has once again exposed us to the richness and extreme relevance found deep within traditional Jewish thought.
His spiritual struggle as a survivor's son has without a doubt molded him, and the art he creates.
