In June 1995 I was invited to take part in a discussion with the plenary commission for the regional funds for Museums new acquisitions.
Curators from several other Museums in the Ile-de-France region attended. All solicited and requested grants to enrich their collection of masterworks. I vividly recall an impressive crucifixion by Lahire. As we went through every presentation of acquisition plans, my anxiety grew. I didn't feel as though I was operating in the same category, what with my small collection exhibiting 187 drawings and watercolours by Boris Taslitzky – all mostly executed on found pieces of paper during the war, the only evidence of this period remaining in his possession.
Yet this was a groundless fear. The curators finished their presentations and the President of the Commission, Jean Jack, also VP of the regional Council of Culture and Blache-Slagas, councillor at the Cultural Affairs for the region Ile-de-France, announced to the audience's surprise, that all funds assigned by the State and the Region were to be awarded to the Museum of the National Resistance in order to preserve and valorise in a public collection this unique set of works by Boris Taslitzky.
All in attendance managed to retrace through this collection, the path of one man's life the resistant and deported citizen, the pedagogue, the artist. The collection reminds us of the extraordinary conditions in which these drawings and watercolors were realised, and the original place of these 106 drawings and watercolors were created : the Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald, and yet their immense plastic and artistic qualities. The gathering also served to highlight the political duty of the Republic's institutions and assemblies to transmit and revitalise in the popular cultural and democratic heritage, the importance of the resistance fighters and deportees, for which the life and the work of Boris Taslitzky is a testament.
While there was initial surprise, there was no contestation of the decision. We all left wiser than when we arrived and proud of our collective mission to build a living historical, artistic and civic heritage for the benefit of all; a source of shared, global cultural history for generations to come.
Guy KRIVOPISSKO, History teacher and curator of the Museum of National Resistance
GALLERY
