Dora Holzhandler was born in Paris in 1928. She moved around a great deal as a child, settling in London in 1948. She considers herself both Jewish and Buddhist, as is often evident in her work and style. She has exhibited her work in London, Bath, Paris and New York.

This is Holzhandler’s only painting that depicts the Holocaust, but Judaism is a reoccurring theme in her work. Although she herself escaped the atrocities of the Holocaust, many members of her extended family, including her grandfather, did not. In this sense she was indirectly affected by the Holocaust.

This painting conjures up a deeply personal and imaginative recollection of her grandfather in the most infamous of the Nazi concentration camps, Auschwitz.

Find more information about the art resources of the Ben Uri gallery in collaboration with the London Grid for Learning.

Two uniforms are visible in this painting, the uniform of the Nazi soldiers and the ‘uniform’ of the Jewish prisoners. On arrival at the camps, the personal clothing of the prisoners was removed and male prisoners were made to wear striped ‘pyjamas’. This made prisoners recognisable if they tried to escape but also dehumanised the prisoners by removing any representation of personal identity. There were also other methods of prisoner identification used by the Nazis in the camps.

Do you know what these were?

How else does Holzhandler identify her grandfather as Jewish in this painting?

The painting also seems to suggest that despite what was happening, the artist’s grandfather maintained his faith in Judaism.

He holds a holy book with Hebrew text. Despite the practice of Judaism being prohibited, the grandfather sits out in the open, reading from the book.

He wears a kippah which denotes his faith in Judaism.

Despite the atrocities that surround him, he has expression of calm and peace.

This depiction of the grandfather suggests that his faith cannot be taken away from him.

Born in Prague, Edith Birkin was sent with her family to the Łódź Ghetto in 1941. She was 14 years old. Her parents died there within a year and when the ghetto was liquidated, Edith was sent to Auschwitz.  Selected for slave labour, she spent the rest of the war working in an underground munitions factory. She took part in one of the notorious death marches and arrived, in 1945, at Belsen, where she was liberated the following month. On her return to Prague she discovered that none of her family had survived. In 1946 she settled in England, where she became a teacher. She went on to adopt three children.This painting is one of many paintings that Birkin has made in response to her experiences during the Holocaust. The Last Goodbye is also the title of a book of poems and paintings that Birkin wrote about her experiences.

Interpreting the image

Why do you think that this painting is called The Last Goodbye?

Who do you think is saying goodbye?

Why do you think that Birkin has chosen to depict the figures in the painting in the way she has?

Birkin said: “I evolved a pictorial language that enabled me to put my visions on canvas. It wasn’t so much the cruelty or physical suffering that I wanted to record. Most of all, I wanted to show what it felt like to be a human being, in the starved, emaciated strange-looking body, forever being separated from loved ones”.

Edith Birkin says that she evolved a ‘pictorial language.’

What might this mean?

Birkin has used a strong contrast between colours in her painting.

What colours has she used and why?

What might the colours in the painting symbolise?

Why is colour used differently in different parts of the painting?

Find more information about the art resources of the Ben Uri gallery in collaboration with the London Grid for Learning.