In sculptor Jonathan Shapiro’s nine-piece show, debuting at Rodef Shalom Congregation on Dec. 16, works, ranging in size from 15 inches to almost 8 feet, recall the stories of Jewish partisans: members of resistance groups who battled Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II.
Shapiro’s idea for “Secret Forest” was spurred by Miriam Brysk’s “Amidst the Shadows of Trees: A Holocaust Child’s Survival in the Partisans.” After reading about Brysk’s survival in the forest as an 8-year-old gun-toting child, Shapiro ventured down the rabbit hole of related literature.
“I continued to research stories of the partisans,” he said.
Accruing knowledge prompted action, and for six months Shapiro sculpted inspired pieces. His pieces in “Secret Forest” are both a nod to history and a call to now.
“We have to be the partisans,” he said. “I’m trying to make sure that there are other partisans out there.”
During a conversation with the Chronicle, Shapiro oscillated between fear and empowerment.
“The current climate is nerve-wracking,” he said.
Rising antisemitism and xenophobia cannot be understood devoid of history, he said. “Secret Forest” beckons viewers to recall earlier periods while standing in the present. Doing so, Shapiro said, provokes a struggle between the works’ weight and time.
“Be aware that this happened, that there were people fighting,” he said.
Between 1942-1944, as many as 20,000 Jews battled German forces in the forests of eastern Europe. Several Jewish fighters escaped ghettos and camps, but life amid the trees wasn’t easy. Apart from evading detection and locating food, shelter was scarce. Partisans tried to survive the winter by building huts from logs and branches, according to the Holocaust Encyclopedia, a project of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Through crafted wood and accompanying QR codes, Shapiro’s pieces depict aspects of the partisan story. One sculpture recalls living conditions. Another piece refers to Frank Blaichman, a Jewish partisan who cycled between farms and towns in occupied Poland, acquiring and selling black market goods to support his family and community while resisting Nazi occupation.
The partisans expressed a “renegade spirit” that must be followed today, Shapiro said. “I got to share the history and pass the history forward to new people who don’t know the history.”
Shapiro’s efforts arrive amid a dearth of Holocaust knowledge.
Fewer than half of Americans (45%) know that approximately 6 million Jews were killed in the Shoah. And, only 45% of respondents know that Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany through a democratic political process, according to a report by the Pew Research Center.
The Claims Conference revealed similar societal ignorance in a study finding that nearly half of Americans (45%) cannot name even one of the more than 40,000 concentration camps and ghettos that existed in Europe during the Holocaust.
Shapiro knows that offering free Holocaust education through art is ambitious, but “people take things in in different ways,” he said.
The artist’s endeavors aren’t new. For years, he’s juxtaposed history and emotion in natural forms. Years after crafting “Given to Nature,” a 15-foot wooden carving in the Fairmont hotel’s lobby, Shapiro dedicated a 2022 show at ZYNKA Gallery in Sharpsburg to shining light on antisemitism.
Since that exhibition, “it has not gotten better, its only gotten worse,” Shapiro said. “The volume has only gone up.”
Mayda Roth, Rodef Shalom’s director of development, said the exhibition has a communicative quality.
“Secret Forest” is similar to Shapiro’s previous collections in that the wood is adeptly “transformed into something that speaks to the people,” she said. “We hope people will learn from these pieces, and be inspired to learn more about the efforts of the partisans in WWII.”
Shapiro agreed that his newest creations employ a familiar voice, but said the sense of threat has exacerbated.
“I’m hearing words like ‘mass deportation.’ There was just a literal Jew hunt in Amsterdam. There’s Nazi stickers being put up on Forbes Avenue and in Squirrel Hill,” Shapiro said. Being a partisan requires possessing a “fighting spirit, a spirit that never gives up, a spirit that keeps on going through tribulation — no matter what — that maintains some level of hope and a willingness to persevere through the s—, because that’s where we are right now.” PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
comments