“I paint with one brush and two colors. The brush is my heart. The colors are the blood and fire of Treblinka, Maidanek and Auschwitz.”
Shaul Banay has been painting since his youth. Once he painted creative man and blossoming nature. He does not paint these anymore. Eight years ago he began to dedicate his canvasses to the suffering and agony of massacred European Jewry.
Yehiel Dinur, better known as Katzetnik 135633, the famous author of novels on the holocaust, likened Auschwitz to a separate planet. “Auschwitz! One did not live there as one lives on this earth. One did not die there as one dies here. Auschwitz was a world different from this.”
Banay has painted the planet of Auschwitz. A planet without light and sun. The sky is not blue, but black with ashes and smoke. The earth not green, but reddened with blood. There are no human beings, only skeletons and black, dark beasts….
Slowly and silently we paced through Banay’s exhibition at the Herzl Institute. We tread softly lest we disturb the stillness of death emanating from the canvasses.
Many of the painter’s pictures portray scenes from Kazetnik’s novels…
“Rebbe, what do you see,” the Jews in the death camp asked the Rabbi of Shilev. “I see a ladder reaching into heaven. Angels walk on it. They go up, up… but never come down.”
The painter has pictured the million of skeletons. The ladder, a skeleton climbing its rungs. And the pale partriarchal face of the Rebbe looking upwards.
“When and where will we meet again?” Munik asked his father when parting from him in Auschwitz. “We will meet my son. In death our ashes will mingle. The wind will carry us to each other.”
Banay’s large surrealistic canvas gives you a glimpse into the mind of Munik. His mental eye sees the metamorphosis of his father. Flesh reduced to bones. The bones turning to ashes.
The central piece of the exhibit is a painting based on a motif of Yitzhak Kazenselson’s “Song of the Slaughtered People.”
The prophet Ezekiel visits the valley of death of Auschwitz. Generations ago he brought dry bones to life at the behest of G-d, but in Auschwitz there were no bones left, only ashes.
“Many books have been written on the holocaust. After reading a book one puts it back on the shelf,” Banay said to us.
“What has happened to us shall not be put on shelves. It must be inscribed on the walls of our homes. I have painted these canvasses to remind our people. Remember the past! For the sacred memory of our father! For the Future of our chidlren,”
People aske me: How long will you go on painting these pictures?” Banay continued. “I will paint of Treblinka, Maidanek and Auschwitz as long as there is strength left in my arms.”
The painter was born fifty years ago in Poland. In his youth he studied at the Yeshiva of Grodno under Rabbi Shimeon Shkop. He received instruction in painting from the famous Polish-Jewish artist Moritz Hirschfeld.
In 1936 he immigrated to Palestine and joined Kibbutz Ginegar. After the outbreak of World War II he enlisted in the British army. In 1941 he was arrested for gun smuggling on behalf of Hagana, was tried by a military court and sentenced to seven years hard labor. An appeal by Moshe Sharett secured his release after fifteen months.
During Israel’s War of Independence, Banay was commander of a heavy artillery detachment.
All his free time in the Kubbutz he devoted to painting. After the war he found no rest — he was haunted by the tragedy of Euroopean Jewry. He sought to express his feelings in painting, but though his soul was stirred and agitated , his fingers felt numb.
In 1955 he visited the Holocaust museum at Kibbutz Lochai Hagettaort. Looking closely at a photograph showing Jews being led to the gas chambers, he recognized among them former fellow students at the Yeshiva of Grodno. he was overcome. All the anguish he carried in his soul broke forth. now more than ever he felt called upon to devote his art to the memory of the slaughtered.
He did not begin at once. For two years he immersed himself into the Holocaust literature poring over the blood-drenched chronicles and poems born in smoke and ashes. After the Sinai Campaign, in which he served with the army, he set to work.
His canvasses have impressed deeply all who saw them. Many told the painter of their thoughts and feelings. Of these, Banay treasures most the works of Katzetnik.
Katzetnik writes books, but he does not talk. Seldom does he speak up. At the trial of Eichmann he spoke and broke down. Silently he moves among the people. He still lives on that other planet, Auschwitz. At times he wears in public the prison uniform of the death camp.
When Katzetnik heard that Banay was painting pictures based on motifs of his books he visited the painter. Clothed in the rags of Auschwitz, he stood in front of the canvases. There he broke his silence.
“I see you marching towards death,” he exclaimed. I see your yellow-greenish skins changing into the red color of the flames…”
Nina, Katzetnik’s wife, implored him to stop. He kept on talking. He spoke in a frenzy, his excitement growing from moment to moment.
Later Katzetnik told Banay why he had spoken. “My books have been translated into many languages,” he explained. “European artists offered to illustrate my writings. I asked them to show me their sketches. I did not like them. They did not express the meaning of Auschwitz. You did!”
Banay’s conception of Auschwitz can be seen in New York until the end of this month. In August the exhibit will be shown in Paris.
The Jewish Press, Friday, June 18, 1965 p. 5