Faces of the Holocaust, the famed triptych by Michael Rogatchi, has been donated by the artist to the Beit le-Banim home for Jewish boys which functions under the auspice of the Dnepropetrovsk Jewish Community in Ukraine. Inna and Michael Rogatchi and their Foundation have been supporting the Jewish community of the place where their families are from.
“There cannot be a better place for this work which is dedicated to the memory of my family of Reiss-Litowsky-Rogatchi who had been living here in the beginning of the XXth century”, – said the artist. Several members of Michael’s family were murdered by the Nazis in Dnepropetrovsk during the Holocaust, and the work is highly symbolic for the artist as a family dedication, and also as related to the place of Ukraine where the Shoah hit his family the hardest.
“I quite realise that the triptych is challenging for children of a young age, but there are boys of different ages who are living and are taken care of at the House, and also, most importantly, we are looking to raise up men, in the best meaning of the word, so I do hope that the work would be a good reminder to many of them, my good little friends there, on how a man should take the challenges in life, and how any person should remember and understand the history, especially the history of his own people” – said Michael.
Michael Rogatchi’s Faces of the Holocaust triptych at its new home at the Beit le-Banim home for boys in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine.
The triptych Faces of the Holocaust, which is a part of the artist’s important In the Mirror of Shoah collection, has been exhibited all over the world including Israel, Poland, Finland, the Baltic states, Italy, and the UK. The image of the triptych has been reproduced in many important publications on the Holocaust world-wide.
Michael Rogatchi and The Rogatchi Foundation express their deep gratitude to the Chief Rabbi of Dnepropetrovsk Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetski, Rabbi Yossi and Rebbetzin Sarah Glicks, Beila Zak, and all the other activists of the Dnepropetrovsk Jewish community for their cordial help in facilitating for the artist and his family this important donation.