The ROGATCHI FOUNDATION DONATES ORIGINAL PRINTS OF PAT MERCER HUTCHENS’ WORKS TO THE HOLOCAUST MUSEUM IN DNEPROPTEROVSK, UKRAINE

In the course of the ceremonies commemorating the opening of the Menorah Center and The Jewish People’s History and the Holocaust in Ukraine Museum in Dnepropetrovsk, The Rogatchi Foundation came with a number of artistic and educational donations. One of them was a set of original author-signed prints of the well-known works by Pat Mercer Hutchens from her Auschwitz Album Revisited series.

Inna and Michael Rogatchi present Pat Mercer Hutchens’ works from her Auschwitz Album Revisited series in the Dnepropetrovsk museum. October 2012 . Courtesy © The Rogatchi Foundation.

During the donation ceremony, Inna Rogatchi told the audience the story of both the Auschwitz Album, one of the most striking and unparalleled documents of WWII; and she also related the story of the re-creation of that powerful, unique history lesson by Pat Mercer Hutchens, the American artist, true Believer, staunch supporter, with her husband legendary US Army General Jim Hutchens, of the state of Israel and the Jewish cause and people.

Inna Rogatchi tells the story of the creation of the Auschwitz Album Revisited by Pat Mercer Hutchens at the museum’s section devoted to Auschwitz . Courtesy © The Rogatchi Foundation.

In her donation speech, Dr Inna Rogatchi emphasised that Pat Mercer Hutchens created her own reality while working on the Auschwitz Album Revisited; the artist was not only re-creating existing photos of the actual horror committed by the Nazis in Auschwitz, but while working on her reading, revisiting those snap-shots, she was able to add to the episodes depicting her own vision, her own accent, focus, details. And in that new reality, we can read the artist’s own attitude to the horror committed against Jewish people.

Inna and Michael Rogatchi present the works of Pat Mercer Hutchens to the director of the Dnepropetrovsk Holocaust Museum. Courtesy © The Rogatchi Foundation.

The moral stand of Pat Mercer Hutchens which transpires from her works, is a vital line of living memory. The Rogatchi Foundation will continue to work together with the American artist and different international cultural and educational institutions  in order to educate more and people on the horrific lessons of WWII, and to bring this knowledge not to their mind only, but to their hearts, as well.

Inna & Michael Rogatchi at the Baby Yar installation, The MEMORY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE AND THE HOLOCAUST IN UKRAINE, Dnepropetrovsk. October 2012. Courtesy © The Rogatchi Foundation.