May 8 | 6 – 7:30pm
Join Pamela Reitman, author of Charlotte Salomon Paints Her Life for a presentation on Charlotte Salomon’s life, writing her story as historical fiction, and more.
The Holocaust and the years leading up to it had a catastrophic effect on the arts: Jewish artists lost their lives in the death camps or were severely traumatized by social or ethnic persecution; many artists were forced to flee their homeland; and many artworks were destroyed, burned or looted between 1933 and 1945.
One of the most stunning works of art produced from that period in history, which did survive, was Life? Or Theater? by Charlotte Salomon. It tells a story in 850 watercolor/gouache paintings created while she was in exile in the South of France. Reitman will talk about the traumas this young woman faced and how she met each one with a steely determination to become a serious modernist artist.
She will ask (and answer) the questions: How does art transform trauma? AND—what is the role of historical fiction today, both for the reader and the writer, in Holocaust education?
Reitman will sign copies of her historical novel, Charlotte Salomon Paints Her Life after the talk which will be available for purchase.
Pamela Reitman is an award-winning writer with numerous publications in literary journals, news outlets, and magazines. She has a B.A cum laude in English from Columbia and an MPH from the University of California Berkeley. She is retired from a career in public health and community service aimed at reducing the stigma of mental illness. Reitman was a past Director of Makar Or: A Jewish Meditation Center in San Francisco. She is lay ordained in the Soto Zen Buddhist tradition. She lives in Northern California with her husband.