Painted from Memory

Parallels between the work of Mayer Kirshenblatt and Charlotte Salomon

These women have just given birth and are lying in bed exhausted. Their newborn babies are there for everyone to admire: the fathers, the proud grandparents, the maternity nurse - all are present.	Charlotte has locked herself in the bathroom. She is sitting on the edge of the tub, pondering about life. Mayer has gotten up to pee. Because they don't have a toilet, at night he uses the special chamber pot in the kitchen.
Two women are huddled over a table. One is Charlotte - she has painted herself as a girl learning to draw. The other is a wigmaker from Opatów as Mayer remembered her.	A procession of Nazis marching through the streets of Berlin on January 30, 1933. Nothing will ever be the same. A year later, Mayer leaves Poland and in Hamburg he buys a ticket at the office of the Hamburg-American Ship Lines.
At the table in Berlin, the guests are discussing their plans to emigrate. Mayer's family is celebrating the Exodus from Egypt (Passover). Mayer is sitting next to his grandfather; Charlotte is among the guests. The hostesses and hosts are seated at the heads of the tables; the food is being served.	Mayer's vessel reaches Canadian waters after a trip lasting several weeks. Charlotte flees Berlin in January 1939. The train headed to Southern-France departing the station.

Between 1940 and 1942, Charlotte Salomon took refuge in Southern-France and spent day and night painting her life story: Life? or Theater?. Mayer Kirshenblatt started a new life in Canada. After many years of insistence by his daughter Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, at the age of 73, he finally began to paint what he remembered of his Polish childhood.