By Jonathan Seltzer
Staff Writer
The LIU Post Hillel hosted an event to commemorate the 81st anniversary of the Holocaust, on Thursday, March 27. Guest speaker Stan Lebovic spoke to an audience of around 20 Post students in the Tilles Center Atrium. A He displayed his artwork, which he created using a computer, and the computerized pictures depict religious symbols memorializing the Holocaust. Some of these images included a Swastika and a mezuzah.
Lebovic grew up as the son of a concentration camp survivor, Alex Lebovic. “Being the son of a Holocaust survivor made it very difficult to maintain my faith. The more serious I take it and look at it, the more difficult it becomes,” he said. “I had grown up with this at such a young age. The way my father felt about it; he just told and retold the stories,” he added. “It had an impact on me because the stories my father told me showed that he survived something that he almost did not and should not have. The artwork I do helps. My artwork is an expression of that struggle.”
Wolf German, a junior Sociology major who was in the audience, found the event inspirational. “I thought the event was very insightful, as it not only went into the aspects of the Torah and how it brought together that God is there for us even through the awful times like the Holocaust,” he said. “One of the artwork pieces, the L’chaim piece, you have the cup, which is the ritual cup used in drinking wine; it looks like someone from the concentration camp. That to me conveys that while the Holocaust was definitely an atrocity; in the end, it symbolizes that the Jewish people proved to be resilient,” he added. “My grandparents are Holocaust survivors and with all this art; it brings on the reliance about how we should never forget the Holocaust as we go on with our lives.”
Hillel, a national organization with a branch on LIU Post’s campus, meets in the Interfaith Chapel on Wednesdays at 4:30 p.m. The organization hosts events throughout the school year, which promote Jewish life and history.
Lebovic is a member of a non-profit organization called Black Is A Color, whose members express what they have experienced during the Holocaust through their artwork. Their artwork displays pictures of historical events and religious memorabilia.
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