Courtesy of Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.
STL Mag enews sponsor_Kemper 10/11/22 - 1
From October 20 to November 6, Lest We Forget, a public art installation created by renowned artist Luigi Toscano, who has been honored by the Federal Republic of Germany and UNESCO, is coming to Washington University. Large portraits of 12 Holocaust survivors from St. Louis will be stationed around the field at Ann and Andrew Tisch Park on the east end of Washington University’ Danforth Campus, and there will be a public ceremony at 5 p.m. on October 20 in Steinberg Hall, where most of the local survivors will be in attendance to see the installation for the first time.
Toscano started the Lest We Forget project in 2014 with the mission to continue the memory and the lessons of the Holocaust. Since then, he has travelled around the world taking portraits of Holocaust survivors, and his work has been shown at exhibitions worldwide. And after seeing one of the exhibitions, Dee Dee Simon, co-founder of Conversation Builds Character and chair of the Missouri Holocaust Education and Awareness Commission, reached out to Toscano in 2020 and invited him to bring the exhibition to St. Louis.
With the help of Marci Rosenberg, a local citizen and former chair of the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum, Toscano and Simon visited the homes of the 12 survivors. During these visits, Toscano would make sure that the survivors were comfortable, bringing small gifts and conversing with them in their first language. “But the survivors’ eyes…” Simon recalled, “It was just this life that came to their eyes. I think [the trust] has to be part of the success of the way [Toscano’s] photos are just so moving and meaningful.”
For Toscano, he knows he could take photos of anything, but he chooses to listen to the stories of the Holocaust survivors and bring their faces and lives to the public space. He hopes to help usher in a world where people will not be bystanders to anti-Semitism and hate, and where Holocaust rememberance is encouraged.
Lest We Forget is on view at Washington University’s Ann and Andrew Tisch Park October 20 through November 6.
