Work Makes You Free (extra)

 

The image above caught my attention right away. The artist that made the work is Heidi Winner, she is from a Jewish heritage and her grandfather survived the holocaust.  Heidi said this about the piece "Art became a way to connect to the Holocaust, and to my family's past."

 

The imagery in the work  is very moving. The banner on top say 'work makes you free'. You can see that the people slowly start to wither away and by the time they reach the banner they are nothing but a skeleton. They were literally worked to death. 

 

There is also  a point when they have to pass over a numbered skeleton arm. I'm not sure if this represents when they receive their own number or if it means a fellow person has fallen. The skeleton arm is also holding a Jewish start but outside of the barbed wire. Could this mean that even though they are being punish for being of Jewish faith, that they still have hope and faith in their beliefs?

 

The image of Hitler himself is very creepy. It makes me nervous that he is staring directly at the viewer. He has this look in his eye almost saying that he wants us to see what he has done to these people and that he thinks what he is doing is right. Half of his head is missing and shows that it is empty, we see no brain inside. Could Winner have been saying he was a thoughtless man? I think so. Behind those hateful eyes is nothing but and empty space.

 

Lastly Hitler has his devilish hand firmly wrapped about a little boy. To me it looked like the kind of boy that Hitler thought was the superior race of human. Fair hair and light eyes. But the little boy has a swastika over his face. This makes me feel like it is a representation of Hitler's followers. There were so any people that believed he was doing the right thing. This little boy could have been raise to believe they were right too. A future Nazi? Possibly.