Native Milwaukeean returns for Holocaust survivor portrait project
As a young child growing up in Milwaukee, Leo Neufeld “was very shy. Looking at people was my communication.” When he was around his parents, both survivors of the Holocaust, and their friends, who were mostly all newcomers to the United States, he was constantly aware of the “big dark hole” surrounding them.
“It [the Holocaust] was never spoken about.” But Neufeld remembers that his “mother would often start to cry. She lost every single living relative she had,” Neufeld told The Chronicle.
Neufeld, now a painter living in Albuquerque, is returning to Milwaukee to paint portraits of area Holocaust survivors, because as he said, “These are people I was raised with. I’ve spent my whole life coming to this moment.”
Neufeld documented his late parents through two portraits of them, and calls the upcoming project in Milwaukee an extension of those portraits, and a result of “the urgency to document the remaining survivors, as each year there are fewer,” according to his web site.
Neufeld, who arrived in Milwaukee on Aug. 16, will spend four weeks here, and hopes to complete 10 portraits during this time. His visit is sponsored by the Holocaust Education and Research Center, a program of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Coalition for Jewish Learning.
“Leo knows the survivor community very well,” said Steve Baruch, Ph.D., executive director of CJL. “He wanted to do something to preserve memories and document the contributions of those people.” Neufeld and Baruch first discussed the possibilities for the project in late 2003.
CJL and HERC are thrilled that Neufeld volunteered to come to Milwaukee for the project, Baruch said. “Leo is a well known painter with a national reputation. He has a serious resume.”
Sandy Hoffman, chair of the HERC advisory board (and also Neufeld’s sister), agreed. “We are fortunate that he is willing to give of his time.”
Hoffman only expressed regrets that this idea had not developed earlier, as “so many of the survivors have passed away.” She hopes in the future that more portraits can be painted based on photos alone.
Of painting the portraits, Neufeld said that it is his way of “being part of the community again… Offering this opportunity is the best gift I can give to the Jewish community and the world.”
Neufeld plans to complete the portraits through three sittings, approximately two hours each, every day at each subject’s home. In addition, he will continue to work in the evening from photos.
Neufeld believes that “life is beautiful in all of its facets. Ugliness, pain, joy, and beauty are all wrapped up in one package.” That is a reason he prefers a traditional approach to his craft: “Art today is very conceptual. I never gravitated towards that.”
While painting, Neufeld says his goal is not to “glamorize or flatter” the survivors. Instead, he wants “them to be the way they are, as if we are having a conversation.”
Once finished, the paintings will stay in the community, although it is unclear where they will be kept. Baruch said that the CJL is looking for a place where the portraits can be permanently displayed. Neufeld would like to see them perhaps in the JCC or in a library. The portraits will likely be unveiled during a Spring 2005 CJL event to honor the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Regardless of where they will be housed, Neufeld made it clear that the portraits are “not available for purchase. That is my intention. That makes [this project] even more special.”
What Neufeld does want is that his portraits “speak for themselves and give [the community] a chance to look at these people in an intimate way.”
He added that it is “a cliché to say this talent is a gift from God. But I have been called to do this. I don’t have a choice.”
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