[In December 2002, we received the following email from Stephanie Franz:]
I used some of the information on your site for a project at school. We had to find an artist who painted a painting of the Holocaust and was in a concentration camp. My favorite painting was "Refugees" because it showed so much emotion. I hope I do well on this project and that you don't mind that I used one of Moshe Rynecki's paintings.
[In response to Stephanie's email we asked for some clarity about her project and if we could include her paper on our website. She wrote the following:]
Our project had several different things we could choose from. We could write a journal entry about a women in a concentration camp (because the book we read (Night) was about a boy), write a few questions that Night brought up about the Holocaust, or find a piece of art made by someone during or about the Holocaust. That is what I choosed and I found your site by searching on MSN. I used the three pictures of the Holocaust (Forced Labor, Refugees, and In the Shelter). I put those on a poster and then wrote what I thought about "Refugees" and how I feel that it connects to Night. I am in eighth grade.
[Below is the paper Stephanie emailed us:]
This painting shows a lot of sorrow and sadness. I think it throws light on Night because it displays how the Jewish and prisoners felt before they had to separate from their families. The families look as if they are distressed, maybe from vacating their homes in running away or leaving their family. Elie must have seen a scene like this sometime during the Holocaust, maybe when they were waiting for the last convoy or when he was saying his goodbye to his mother and sisters. Since Moshe Rynecki did most of his artwork on scenes he saw, he might have seen a scene that he made this for.
I picked this painting over the other two because I feel that it
shows more emotion between people. It also gives the impression that the
Holocaust was more that just beatings, people dying, starvation, the list could
on. This demonstrates the family bonds between the Jews and how much they cared
about each other. I couldn't begin to describe how they felt because I was never
there, and I don't think I will have to go through their suffering. I'm sure
that just the thought of the Holocaust was enough to make them unhappy. Most
people might learn about it, but they don't really learn if they don't absorb
the material and think about how much these people had to go through just
because of their religion. I hope that everyone who reads Night, feeling the
emotion that Elie writes so well onto the paper, will try to make a difference
in this world, not being indifferent, which Elie refers to as being the most
insidious danger of them all.