Judith Weinshall Liberman: INSIGNIA

All rights reserved to author-artist Judith Weinshall Liberman
This is one of author-artist Judith Weinshall Liberman’s sixty wall hangings about the Holocaust. It is 61” tall and 56” wide (155 cms by 142 cms), was created in 1994 and is one of Judith Weinshall Liberman’s 45 Holocaust Wall Hangings in the permanent collection of the Temple Tifereth Israel in Cleveland, Ohio. The shapes and colors of insignia designed to be worn by inmates of Nazi concentration camps are here presented in the form of a grid. Across the top, the columns read: Political (red); Hardcore Criminal (green); Emigrant (blue); Jehovah’s Witness (purple); Homosexual (pink); Antisocial (black). On the left margin, starting from the top, the categories are: Basic Colors, Insignia for Repeaters, Inmates of Penal Colonies, Insignia for Jews and Special Insignia. Some of the Special Insignia are illustrated and a sample sleeve bearing insignia appears at lower right. The original document on which this presentation is based is in the camp museum at Dachau. This wall hanging was created mainly by applique, the shapes of the various insignia rendered in appropriately colored fabric. The words were stenciled in black acrylic and the grid was created by painting. The background gray striped fabric evokes an image of the uniforms worn by camp inmates under the Nazis.