ARTISTS TALKING

# 48 [24 November 2009]

Last Friday I was privileged to interview Norbert Herz (now 78), Holocaust survivor and Rivesaltes intern. I have applied for a grant to visit him in Manchester, but for now we spoke over the phone. I plan to use extracts from the interview as a soundtrack for a video (I am working on it at the moment).

I shall include everything that he said, unedited, as it really gives a shocking insight into life in 'Free France' during the war.

Section One

JM - How did you come to be at Rivesaltes?

NH - I was at Rivesaltes twice . . .

I was born in Berlin in 1931.  In 1938 on the 9^th November was the Kristallnacht; the morning after my mother and I and aunt and uncle left from the Alexanderplatz . . . We travelled by taxi to the Belgian border and at the Belgian border the German border guards let us go. In a field, what you would call somebody who helps you pass the border clandestinely, a smuggler if you like, was waiting for us. We walked with him in the night across to Belgium and he had a farm house on the Belgian side. There we waited till daylight and we got the train to Antwerp and in Antwerp I was a year and a half. I went to school there and in 1940 when the Germans invaded Belgium my mother and I and my aunt and uncle got the train to France. Many people, not only Jewish people, got the train to France, the train took us to the south of France.

We went to a village called Boulogne-sur-Gesse [near Toulouse], which is called in French ‘une résidence assignée’ a kind of apartment in that village so that the authorities knew where we were. Then after some time they started putting foreign Jews into internment camps. The first internment camp was called Brens which is next to Gaillac-sur-Tarn [near Toulouse]. There I was for a few months with my mother and then we were all transferred to Rivesaltes, an entirely different camp.

We were in Ilot F. Rivesaltes . . . a flat plain surrounded by hills, it was always very windy and in winter it was extremely cold and in the summer it was too hot. The conditions were very harsh and then I was taken out from Rivesaltes by an organisation OSE, a French Jewish organisation which took out children from the internment camp and placed them in homes. They took me out from Rivesaltes and put me in a home in Brout-Vernet which is near Vichy. I was there some time.

http://www.jonathan-moss.com

# 47 [19 November 2009]

I found last night's "Where is Modern Art Now?", on the BBC, heartening. Gus Casely-Hayford (GC-H) explored the position of the current art scene during the recession and post YBA celebrity bling.

He asked: 'Where do you go when being provocative is old-hat?'. Whilst viewing a show in a Peckham car-park of work by recent graduates, he was shocked at not being shocked.

He interviewed Michael Landy whose work has dramatically changed since 'Breakdown' which involved destroying all his possessions. After publicly destroying himself, what direction could his work take? He started to make delicate etchings of weeds and has recently been drawing portraits. He has turned to quieter pieces. Apparently even Damien Hirst is painting in oils again (isn't that a bit messy for him?).

On attending the Goldsmiths MA show GC-H was underwhelmed. He thought it was work you could definitely hang on your dining room wall, modest and institutionalised. He stated: "I'm disappointed with this show, ambitions have been stunted by the recession ... this is in the shadow of the all-powerful YBAs. The market should come to the artist not the other way round."

I was particularly struck by the work and philosophy of Whitney McVeigh who at 40 is only now being recognised. Her work is governed by process rather than the 'big idea', she explained: "It's about arriving at a point which has gathered itself over a long period of time." (Which sounded like me talking.) To GC-H she is " ... a quiet voice after a noisy decade."

The process of making is clearly admired these days. Grayson Perry's astute comments distinguished between the making of 'art' with that of 'craft'. He explained: "you can teach craft ...' One remark which made me laugh: "Jackson Pollock was very good at dripping, whereas in the field of painting, he was rubbish". So 'technical ability' is important to Grayson - maybe a throw-away comment because Pollock developed his complex technique over a long period. This is something I've had to deal with as I'm dripping a lot recently ...

Whilst talking of visual pleasure, Grayson said: "I want to titillate the neurones ... we undervalue the visual." His pots are beautiful; thankfully these days it seems that the term is not used in a derogatory way.

GC-H concluded: "The art scene is alive and well. Artists think about technique and history ... artists are less brash than their predecessors ... they like the idea of practice ... I want art to produce challenges, not be just another form of entertainment ... and back in touch with materials. "

He ended with an appraisal of the work of Tom Price - beautiful miniature busts of heads, alluding to anthropological images regarding race. The aspect that appealed to GC-H was that his work required real thought, you don't get it instantly.

I am now fully inspired to get back to messing about in my studio with materials and encouraging beautiful surfaces to evolve.

# 46 [17 November 2009]

I watched 'The Art on your wall' on BBC2 last night and it raised some interesting points. Sue Perkins approached the subject as a typical home-owner who wants to decorate her house with pictures.

She made a distinction between artists who make art to decorate walls and artists who make art for galleries. So, which category do I fall in to?

When I started making videos I thought to myself: 'now I'm a real artist, nobody can buy my work!'. However, I still paint and people do still buy my work even though the subject is the Holocaust - this does surprise me, but the inspiration and origin of the work is not that obvious to everybody. On the surface, my work is about texture, colour and repetitive forms; on one level one of my blue paintings could easily adorn somebody's lounge wall because it matches their sofa. Does this demean the work?

Sue Perkins interviewed members of the public in Ikea buying Klimt prints, their reasons? They liked the colours. The content of the work was not important to them - it became merely decoration.

Clearly there are many different art worlds - even Jack Vettriano admitted he could not be compared to Bacon and Freud. What did strike me as odd though was that he believed that his work was so popular because it demonstrated great skill (maybe at A'Level in my opinion), he continued to say that skill is not evident in recent graduates work which, in his opinion, is only concerned with how to shock Britain.

Where does this leave me? Do I make work for the gallery elite? That doesn't please me either. So, I've decided that the best thing to do is to make work for myself, hopefully no integrity will be lost.

Let's open a can of worms - comments invited.

http://www.jonathan-moss.com/

# 45 [11 November 2009]

Journal de Rivesaltes. by Friedel Bohny-Reiter, Published 1998, written whilst she was a Red-Cross worker at Rivesaltes during 1941 - 1942:

13^th September [1942].  It is 12.30 and we have only just got back from the station. We have been there since 3pm. It was horrible today. Such scenes. The people were left standing up for the roll call under a leaden sun, from 7am to 11am. Then they separated those who had to leave from those who stayed. I can still hear the cries of the women. I managed to free the children of one of the mothers. When I wanted to take them she pulled them to her. I lifted the children in my arms and took them to our quarters. When the mother refused to get into the truck the guards pushed her in.

Wagon after wagon was filled. Two were still empty and they had to find more to fill them. A woman who was a Belgian Protestant had come to the camp with her two children to look for her Jewish husband. Three more were needed to make up the convoy and they seized her and her children. The guards held her down as they took her and her to the wagon and shut the iron door behind her. ‘I am not a Jew’, she screamed.

Sometimes I feel afraid that we are implicated in this terrible betrayal.

The journal cites many incidents of children being separated from their families, some with a happy ending.

Whilst researching Holocaust survivors who were interned at Rivesaltes I came across Norbert Herz who was a child at the camp. He is 78 now, a retired teacher living in Cheadle, Manchester. He escaped from Nazi Germany to France, where he was interned at Rivesaltes and then fostered into a Jewish home at which time his mother was kept prisoner by the French administration.

He escaped to Switzerland and then headed for Palestine and eventually settled in Manchester.

Yesterday I contacted Dr Jean-Marc Dreyfus a lecturer in Holocaust Studies at Manchester University who invited Norbert Herz to give a talk last year at a conference on Holocaust education at the university. He is kindly going to request that I meet Mr Herz - I would like to interview him, not only as an important part of my research but with a view to form a new series of works. Watch this space . . .

http://www.jonathan-moss.com/

# 44 [11 November 2009]

I've just returned from an Armistice commemoration in our village - most of the villagers attended (about 20 people). Amidst a shambolic (and strangely entertaining) ceremony including a very loud and distorted recording of The Marseillaise played on the village tannoy the mayor read the following which was written by Hubert Falco (Secretaire d'Etat a la Defense et aux Anciens Combattants):

. . . peace, which seemed to have been acheived on the day following 11 Nov 1918 did not last. Twenty years later the Second World War broke out. The generations of people who suffered greatly during the Great War had to live again through terrible times.

Throughout the 20th Century, there have never been two nations who were so affected as France and Germany. Let us consider together the road travelled since the Second World War thanks to the work of the Franco/German fathers of reconciliation: Robert Schumann, the Adenauer Chancellor and General de Gaulle. There are no other nations in the world today other than France and Germany who are so driven by such an intense desire to pursue the establishment of a common future.

Franco-German reconciliation, the shared determination to build a united Europe, all of this is not being constructed on an attempt to forget or deny the past, but as a consequence of it.

Today the Pesident of the French Republic and the German Chancellor have come together in Paris. United, they respectfully honour the dead and the soldiers of the Great War. They are also celebrating the long-lasting links which France and Germany have sealed. For the greatest honour we can give to those who lost their lives in the First World War is to construct that which they hoped for but did not know or see: a reconciled Europe, a peaceful Europe.

Considering that a large proportion of the villagers in attendance were not French, this was met with some bewilderment, however, it was swiftly followed by an aperitif in the village hall. As we drank Pastis at 11.15 in the morning, nobody commented on the speech, rather, the topic of conversation was that good old favourite: the weather.

http://www.jonathan-moss.com/

# 43 [4 November 2009]

Pat Weed from Kansas came to the studio today. She stumbled across the blog whilst researching the history of this area of France before her holiday to the area. She is Judeo-Christian and takes a deep interest in the Holocaust. Having read this blog she wanted to visit the camp with me which she did this afternoon.

She arrived at 1.00 with her husband and daughter. Following a good while getting to know each other better the conversation veered towards the Holocaust; as we were discussing the nature of Rivesaltes as not only a transit camp, but as a concentration camp and the implications of both names, Louis burst into the room dressed as Darth Vader, it was clearly time to start looking at my videos.

Pat asked where the images that I painted originated, so I showed her the video RQV2 and explained that my work is more evocative than descriptive, the context giving the work meaning rather than it emerging from the images. I would say that my work is 'difficult' to view/interpret if not allowing yourself to be absorbed by the ethereal sound and images on a meditative level, which they seemed to appreciate. Then we got on to the paintings.

They listened attentively as I explained how I interpreted the video-stills through using various materials in the studio. They seemed to like the work as they left with one of the new red drip paintings 'Argeles. 1.i' based on the Argeles video.

Helen dropped the children off with the grandparents and off we went to the camp. As usual wind and rain featured, but even on a sunny day the camp is grim. Following a tour of a small section of the camp we headed for the railway siding where Pat wished to place a stone from the Western Wall (Wailing Wall) which she collected earlier in the year. She handed out sheets for us to follow the Kaddish mourning prayer, which she then prayed and we all finished with an Amen, it was moving. Before we parted we went to the memorial stones to each of the peoples held at the camp for a photo opportunity.

The memorial stone for the Jews, vandalised in 2003 reads:

 ... Delivered to the Nazis in the Occupied Zone, by authority of the French government, deported to the extermination camp of Auschwitz and murdered because they were Jews. We will never forget these victims of racial and xenophobic hatred.

She is going to speak with a friend at the Mid-West Centre for Holocaust Education in Kansas about the work I'm doing based on the camp, so a longer-lasting link may have been formed... all due to this blog.

http://www.jonathan-moss.com/

# 42 [23 October 2009]

Nick Griffin (BNP leader) on BBC's Question Time was controversial and caused violent protests. People say to me that the Holocaust is not a relevant subject today, so why did a Holocaust denier stir up so much anger?

Before QT, BBC news broadcast the following:

Although he now says Hitler was wrong, he once said about the Holocaust:

Orthodox opinion is that six million Jews were gassed and cremated. Orthodox opinion also once held that the world is flat.

But without a formal ban on the BNP and with the party polling 6% in the European elections the BBC felt he could be allowed an occasional slot on Question Time.

Nick Robinson, BBC Political Editor, commented:

He's also been given the chance to deny that he is a Holocaust denier, to simply confirm that he thinks that the Nazis did kill millions of Jews. He failed to do that tonight...

The QT show mainly focused on Griffin. Amongst questions from the audience, regarding his comments on race, immigration and the BNP hijacking the image of Winston Churchill, was the following:

David Dimbleby:

Which is the untrue quote that's been said about you? The Holocaust denial possibly?... Did you deny the Holocaust?

NG:

I do not have a conviction for Holocaust denial.

DD:

But you did deny it... Why are you smiling, it's not a particularly amusing issue.

NG:

I was very critical for the way in which the Holocaust was and is in fact abused to prevent serious discussion over immigration.

DD:

Just you say you're misquoted...

[Quoting NG]:

I want to see Britain become 99% genetically white just as she was 11 years before I was born.

...I can't find the misquotations and apparently neither can you.

The discussion continued, then came a question from the floor:

Winston Churchill put everything on the line so that my ancestors wouldn't get slaughtered in the concentration camps but here sits a man who says that that's a myth just like a flat world was a myth. How could you say that?

NG:

I cannot explain why I used to say those things... anymore than I can tell you why I've changed my mind. I cannot tell you the extent to which I've changed my mind because European law prevents me...

DD:

Have you actually changed your mind or do you only say you've changed your mind because the law makes it illegal to be a Holocaust denier?

NG:

I have changed my mind, a lot of it is about figures. One of the key things which makes me change my mind is British radio intercepts of German transmissions about the brutal mass-murder of innocent Jews on the Eastern Front...which changes the figures very greatly.

Jack Straw:

What about Auschwitz? Couldn't people see with their own eyes what happened in Auschwitz? You didn't need a subsequent radio intercept to find out that people were gassed at Auschwitz.

Maybe my work is about a contemporary issue afterall.

http://www.jonathan-moss.com/

# 41 [18 October 2009]

Another interesting insight in to the camp  was the system of heating used during 1941 - 1942. The huts weren't heated, only the school huts (where the Quakers organised wood stoves), administration buildings and ilot G - the health centre. At one moment the camp staff realised that there were a lot of beds missing and it was discovered that the interns were burning their beds, so desperate were they to keep warm.

Many charities worked at the camp, obviously the Red Cross, but also the Quakers, YMCA and the OSE, a Russian Jewish charity. The last one interests me personally as my Jewish family is from Russia . . . I'll do a little more research.

The hour or so was really helpful, especially discovering the hut where Friedal Bohny-Reitel wrote her journal. Elodie is mainly concerned with giving teachers the tools to teach awareness of the Holocaust, particularly the role of the camp at Rivesaltes in the Final Solution, but is soon off to Auschwitz to take part in a conference. I plan to visit Auschwitz myself sometime in the future, perhaps travelling by train from Rivesaltes to make a new series of videos.

http://www.jonathan-moss.com/

# 40 [17 October 2009]

Some of the Spanish who were held at the make-shift camps on the beach at Argeles were recruited in work parties to extend the already-standing military base at Rivesaltes, little knowing that they would be interned there themselves.

During the '60s when the Harkis were housed at Rivesaltes the huts were in bad repair, most of them uninhabitable, so they slept in tents. When the last Harkis left the camp in 1970 they were housed on an especially constructed estate, unfortunately on a flood-plain, even after flooding they remain there today.

One issue that has interested me is the organisation of the camp during the war, at no time were German Nazis involved in the running of the camp, it was the Vichy administration who were in charge. The Jews who were sent to Auschwitz were sent by Vichy government chief-of-police Rene Bousquet; the Nazis had requested 40,000 Jews to be sent to concentration camps in Eastern Europe from the south of France, he sent an extra 10,000, 2,313 of which were from Rivesaltes. Elodie explained that in this way Rivesaltes played a real part in the Final Solution. The guards were all French, mostly local Gendarmes from Rivesaltes and Perpignan.

The Jews held at the camp were mainly from Germany and Poland, French Jews were not held there (unlike other camps in the south). I found it interesting that the French Rabbi from Perpignan visited the camp. Jewish festivals were celebrated and other interns, Spanish and Gypsies, joined in - language was not an issue. Vivette Samuel, an aid worker for the OSE: With a trembling hand, one of the veteran inmates lights the first small flame of the gigantic Menorah built by the detainees. And the traditional song borne by hundreds of voices ascends in the night that falls on the camps. For a moment the suffering recedes and I allow myself to be invaded by an immense hope.

Another piece of information which had eluded me was what happened to the bodies of those who died at the camp from malnutrition and disease, I knew that the few graves at the cemetry at Rivesaltes did not account for the thousands who died there. Elodie explained that there are a few graves at Perpignan, but it is largely believed that many were incinerated or buried in a mass-grave outside the camp, however no evidence has been found.

Whilst walking around Ilot K, Elodie pointed out the hut where Friedel Bohny-Reiter wrote her journal ('Journal de Rivesaltes'). The hut was covered in frescos on the interior, ones I had not noticed before, a Swiss mountain landscape. On the exterior, covered by bushes a painting of a train (a strange subject to us, but they didn't know their fate) plane and boat. Elodie said that the thinking behind these depictions of transport was to encourage people to consider how they might leave the camp. It is such a shame that soon these may be lost.

http://www.jonathan-moss.com/

# 39 [17 October 2009]

It looks like the summer has ended, it seems difficult to believe we were in T-shirts and shorts just three days ago: it was too hot to sit outside, now all I seem to be doing is stoking the fire. Yesterday we went to the camp where I had arranged to meet Elodie Montes, the education officer for the Rivesaltes Memorial; stupidly I didn't take a coat thinking it would be warmer than our house in the mountains, it was, but was so windy that I could barely hear Elodie talking.

Meeting her was enlightening and helped fill some of the gaps in my research on the camp, she confirmed some of my suspicions and recounted some great anecdotes.

We started at 'Ilot F', the section of the camp owned by the Conseil General of Languedoc Rousillon (regional government). We looked at the devastation of last January's storm, she explained that many of the paintings on the walls were being rescued, dismantled and preserved in the archive before the huts crumbled. I pointed out a drawing of children in striped tunics on one wall, she was not aware of it and is going to bring it to the attention to an historian to see if it dates from 1941/'42.

Elodie confirmed that the large paintings of figures with tools in a hut in Ilot K were painted in 1941/'42 to decorate the interns' workshop (which was established by one of the charity organisations working in the camp with the aim of teaching the young men a trade). Ilot K is owned by the army and the plan is to knock down the huts in the near future; the memorial is in discussion with them to try to save the paintings before the huts are dismantled.

Ilot K was the only hut totally surrounded by barbed-wire, this was where the Jews were held later in addition to Ilot F. At first the camp was open, as it is in an isolated place and was called a 'Centre Rassemblement Familial'. Despite this, mothers and children were separated from the men. Boys of 14 were considered to be men and therefore taken from their mothers, so the mothers with little foresight to lie lost contact with their sons. It was the Tsiganes (Gypsies) who could remain in family units, apparently because they protested strongly and had the energy that the Spanish and the Jews lacked to make their case.

At the edge of Ilot K is the remains of the railway track built especially to take some of the Jews to the main line from Perpignan to Paris; the sleepers are still there, but not the lines themselves. At different times during 1942 interns were transported not only by train, but by lorry to Rivesaltes station.

Mothers-to-be were also transported by lorry to Elne to the Maternite Suisse, but had to return to the camp all too soon.

http://www.jonathan-moss.com/