Untitled, Execution: Babi Yar series. Nizhny Tagil or Leningrad

Felix Lembersky

1944–1952

Painting depicting men and women gathered in and above ravine.
Felix Lembersky’s three Babi Yar paintings were among the first artistic representations of the Nazi massacre in Kyiv, when, over the course of two days in September 1941, over 33,000 Jews were murdered in Babi Yar, a ravine on the outskirts of the city. After the war, when Soviet policy called for downplaying the fact that Jews were specifically targeted for genocide by depicting all victims of the Nazis only as “Soviet citizens,” Lembersky was not allowed to exhibit these paintings. His daughter remembers that visitors would come to their home in Leningrad for clandestine viewings and stand before them with heads bowed, perhaps reciting Kaddish, the Jewish prayer of mourning.

Credits

© Yelena Lembersky.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 9.

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Creator Bio

Felix Lembersky

1913–1970

Felix Lembersky was a Ukrainian painter whose works departed from the conventions of Soviet painting, bringing personal and historical truths into social consciousness. A formally trained artist, Lembersky studied at the Jewish Arts and Trades School in Kiev and the Russian Academy of Arts in Leningrad. He survived the Nazi siege of Leningrad in 1941 but lost his family to the Holocaust. In addition to including Jewish symbols and imagery, Lembersky’s painting often represented the harsh realities of Soviet life in a colorful, impressionistic style.

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