FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
VEDEM UNDERGROUND EXHIBIT IS FEATURED AT FLORIDA’S HOLOCAUST MUSEUM & COHEN EDUCATION CENTER
NAPLES, FL, Feb. 17, 2022 – Next week will be the last chance to experience VEDEM UNDERGROUND: The Secret Magazine of the Terezin Ghetto (1942-1944) at the Holocaust Museum & Cohen Education Center. “Named one of the Smithsonian’s 10 “Don’t Miss…” new exhibits for Winter 2017, VEDEM UNDERGROUND, produced by the VEDEM Foundation, wraps up its three- month showing at the Holocaust Museum & Cohen Education Center on February 27. VEDEM UNDERGROUND is an art installation that deconstructs and reinterprets the literary work of the teenage Jewish creators of the longest-running underground magazine in a Nazi camp. From 1942 to 1944, Vedem (“In the Lead” in Czech) chronicled life within the walls of Czechoslovakia’s Terezin Ghetto, and was a symbol of protest, rebellion and creative activism by some of the era’s youngest resistance fighters. Inspired by Vedem’s invaluable lessons about the necessity of free speech and the dangers of propaganda and censorship, the exhibit premiered at the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles in 2016, and has since been presented in cities such as Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Sacramento and Portland, Oregon.
Using a combination of pop-art graphics, archival photographs and cartoons, and the prose and poetry created by the magazine’s contributors, VEDEM: THE UNDERGROUND MAGAZINE OF THE TEREZIN GHETTO celebrates the artistic and cultural legacy of Vedem by breaking down its 83 weekly issues totaling the 800 pages, then reconstructing them in the form of a contemporary magazine.
VEDEM: THE UNDERGROUND MAGAZINE OF THE TEREZIN GHETTO was produced and curated by Rina Taraseiskey, whose grandfather led the resistance at Lithuania’s Kovno Ghetto and who is also producing the Vedem Underground documentary film with an Oscar- and Emmy- award winning team; Los Angeles-based art director Michael Murphy, who conceptualized the exhibit as a merging of punk subculture-inspired art and the 1940s-era ‘zine aesthetic; and Los Angeles-based writer and journalist Danny King, who is producing the graphic novel about Vedem.
“It’s been an honor to showcase the incredibly courageous and creative work by some of the youngest resistance fighters of the World War II era,” said Taraseiskey, founder of the Vedem Underground project. “These teenage boys refused to give up their identity, their humanity and their fighting spirit.”
“I was motivated to combine the feel of a 1940s-era ‘zine with something that would be more relatable today, especially to younger people,” said Murphy, the exhibit’s art director. “These boys were rebels, so I took a more contemporary, almost punk-rock approach.”
“These boys were risking their lives in order to do this and they used nicknames to hide their identities,” said King. “Vedem reflected the stark reality of life inside Terezin, but it was also an escape for them. They expressed their opinions with humor, cartoons and poetry. They could forget that they were in prison ”
VEDEM: THE UNDERGROUND MAGAZINE OF THE TEREZIN GHETTO was the winner of the 2016 WORD Grant: The Bruce Geller Memorial Prize, a project of American Jewish University’s Institute for Jewish Creativity. The exhibit has also been generously supported by the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles. Other support for the project comes from Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation and The Ziering Foundation.
CONTACT:
Rina Taraseiskey
Founder and Executive Director, Vedem Foundation
vedemunderground@gmail.com
323.397.6423
www.vedemunderground.com.
ABOUT THE VEDEM FOUNDATION: The Vedem Foundation produces, operates and promotes its traveling museum collection about Vedem, the longest underground magazine to be regularly produced in a Nazi camp. The Foundation aims to provide both the catalyst and tools for young adults to become creative activists within their communities through innovative multimedia materials and programming, including books, films and educational programs.
ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST MUSEUM & COHEN EDUCATION CENTER: Founded in 2001, the Holocaust Museum & Cohen Education Center has a unique beginning as a 7th grade classroom project about the Holocaust at Golden Gate Middle School. Today, the Holocaust Museum & Education Center has established itself in the community as a source of high quality education about the importance of respect and the dangers of indifference. With its focus on education, the Museum’s programs reach over 15,000 students each year.