SIMCHA NORNBERG Ksiega ascezy i radosci zycia - The book of ascetism and joy of life

Coperta cartonata rigida con finestra su illustrazione di un’opera dell’artista, formato cm. 30 x 23 e pagine 191. Bilingue: POLACCO e INGLESE. Simcha Nornberg was born in a small Jewish town near Cracow. He received a traditional education in Heder and Talmud Torah. At the beginning of WWII, he moved to the eastern part of Poland, which was controlled by the Soviet Union, and organized the Zionist youth in Lvov. In 1940, Nornberg was declared an enemy of the people and sentenced to prison with hard labor in Soviet camps. His paintings, done for the wife of the prison-camp commander, saved his life. Most of his family had remained in the German-controlled part of Poland and perished in the Holocaust. His older sister, Genia Weinstein, was saved by Oscar Schindler. Nornberg returned to Poland in 1946, founded the first Hebrew school in Katowitz and was active in aiding Jewish survivors to immigrate to Eretz Israel. He took up painting again, depicting mainly scenery of the small Jewish towns and villages that had been destroyed during the war. His Zionist activities endangered his life and he was forced to flee Poland. During the years 1949-1952, Nornberg was active in Israeli politics and public life, and became a member of the World Jewish Congress leadership between 1952-1955. He edited the Hebrew monthlies BaDerech and Mabat. In 1972 he finally dedicated himself fully to art. The images that Nornberg carried within him for so long gushed forth in his desire to compensate himself for lost time. The contrasts that characterize his entire oeuvre are manifested in a real rift between two worlds: the world of his childhood and youth cut short so cruelly by WWII, and the new world, a modern world of cultural and political rebirth in Israel. Nornberg’s work affirms life but cannot ignore an entire world turned topsy-turvy by the war. The passing time honed and intensified the artist’s need to give testimony, to battle forgetfulness, to leave footprints behind, and revive the ashes of the past world whose music continued to be heard in his soul many years after it fell silent. Pari al nuovo. Rarissimo. V550