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Cycle of paintings The
girl and the wolf "An impressive and
beautiful work of art." "A powerful statement of universal
application." "Interesting and
moving."
Material: acrylic on canvas; all paintings are 70x90 cm. A
story of many times Like
an axe in hard frozen ice
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The
girl arrives with her mother, sister and little brother in the concentration
camp.
She is separated from her sister.
She freezes.
The girl is shaved, inspected and numbered.
So are her little brother and the other children.
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The girl’s mother is taken away and does not return.
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Wolfgang has an eye on the girl.
He rapes her.
The girl tries to escape from herself.
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She feels guilty.
The
wolf takes care of the girl.
Thus she is able to comfort the others.
The girl is torn apart inside.
She gets pregnant.
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She
gives birth to a son.
The baby is
smuggled out of the camp.
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The blond woman, a camp guard, is jealous of the girl and the wolf.
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The wolf flees the camp.
The blond woman tortures the girl.
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The girl no longer eats or drinks.
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She
dies.
The blond
woman finds her body and feels remorse.
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And the girl returned in order to free herself from everything.
ArchiveS A
reproduction of the revised cyclus of paintings (1995/2016) together
with explanations is kept in the archives of
EXHIBITIONS The
first version of the cycle as created in 1995 was exhibited three times in the
Netherlands:
PRESS "Confronting
and moving; a statement, but not only that. Also an impressive and beautiful work of art." (De Gelderlander) "Impressive and moving." (Algemeen Dagblad) "Painted in sober colors and with virtuose brushstrokes, the work makes a deep impression." (Centraal Weekblad) "Images, still and moving, subdued and expressive. What a world Saar Roelofs evokes by her brushstrokes." (Zinweb) "Touching images." (AD Alphen aan de Rijn) "The
work excels in its simplicity."(Dagblad de Limburger)
FROM GUESTBOOKS AT THE EXHIBITIONS -
"Very confronting and intense - at the same time subtle and with
compassion."
FROM THE INTRODUCTION to The girl and the wolf, with the title LIKE AN AXE IN HARD FROZEN ICE, BY HANS PAALMAN ON THE OCCASION OF THE 1998 EXHIBITION "Like Picasso in his magisterial canvas Guernica Saar Roelofs
achieves with her grey and white colors a dramatic tension. Whereas
Picasso's Guernica is the shroud of the Basque city Guernica, Saar
Roelofs' work of art is the shroud of the numberless
victims of rape and genocide in the concentration
camps."
From letters AND E MAILS to the artist "A powerful statement of universal application." (Jack Boas, author of a.o. Boulevard de miseres. The story of transit camp Westerbork and We are witnesses. Five diaries of teenagers who died in the Holocaust) "Interesting and moving." (Helmuth Braun, Head of Exhibitions of the Jewish Museum Berlin) "Impressive." (Edward van Voolen, curator Jewish Museum Amsterdam) "Intrusive work of all times and people." (Stef Temming, former director the National Wat and Resistance Museum Oorlogsmuseum Overloon, the Netherlands) "Provoking
and poignant images. Very
much of current interest because of its possibilities to deal with the
past." "Impressive paintings.” (Inge Jaehner, former director Felix-Nussbaum-Haus) "Moving work. It touches me." (Isaac Lipschits, Professor Emeritus Contemporary history and initiator of the Digital Monument of the Jewish Community in the Netherlands) "A poignant cycle." (Dirk Mulder, director Memorial Center Camp Westerbork, the Netherlands) "I appreciate very much that also artists don't stop to turn to the topic of overall dehumanisation." (Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek, former chief curator Jewish Museum Vienna) "Moving." (Liesbeth Brandt Corstius, former director of Museum Arnhem, the Netherlands) "Powerful and exceptional." (Marcia Reines Josephy, former director/curator of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust.) "This moving and original work stimulates adults and children, regardless their cultural background, to think about victims and perpetrators, each in their own role involved in the same disaster. An unheard actual document." (Prof. dr Etty Mulder, former head research project Holocaust in the Arts, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands)
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See also:
Deportation, an early work on the Holocaust
Life
stories of Auschwitz survivors, recorded
by Saar Roelofs