Press releases

MINSK, 19 October (BelTA) – The exhibition “On the other side of life: German occupation in Meer Axelrod’s graphics” will open in the National History Museum on 23 October as part of the Days of Memory to mark the 75th anniversary of the destruction of the Minsk Ghetto, BelTA learned from the organizers of the exhibition.

The exhibition is a joint project of the National History Museum, the Union of Belarusian Jewish public associations and communities, Alexander Pechersky foundation, Vellum Gallery, and the Nativ Israeli cultural center at the Embassy in Belarus.

Meer Axelrod was born in Molodechno in 1902. In 1921, after participating in a large art exhibition in Minsk, he was sent by the BSSR People's Commissariat for Education to study in Moscow. Professors Shterenberg, Favorsky and Pavlinov liked the works of the young artist, and he was immediately admitted to the VKhUTEMAS School of Art.

In 1926, he joined the Four Arts society, actively participated in art exhibitions. At the beginning of the war in 1941 he stayed in Moscow, refusing evacuation and trying to learn the fate of the brother Zelik Axelrod who was arrested. He was mobilized into the army but was soon invited by Sergei Eisenstein to work on the Ivan the Terrible film in Almaty where he worked until 1944 and where he helped Jewish refugees from Poland. He died in Moscow on 10 January 1970.

The exhibition displays graphic works by the artist united by the common theme “German occupation”: sketches to the series “German occupation” (Germans’ Atrocities), “Ghettos”, illustrations to the books about the Great Patriotic War and working materials. The exhibition is complemented by two works about the Holocaust by another Soviet artist Abram Monoszon, a native of Belarus. The works will be exhibited in Minsk for the first time.

The exhibition will stay open till 12 November.