Som Chai meets my family & friends
I am so excited that Som Chai is now in Oz and has been granted a partner visa.
He's met my family and friends, and even come along to Uni with me.
It is wonderful having him here with me - no more lonely nights or awkward outings on my own!
I can throw my wish list in the fire now because he fulfils all my dreams. I am so proud of him - he is charismatic, generous and kind, and he is also Budhist and a meditator!
I wondered whether there was a difference between art made by a human and art made by a machine? So I made a fan that painted, and I became a painting human fan.
Conclusion: there was no difference.
Just an Ordinary Peasant is based on my uncle’s experience as an inmate at Treblinka extermination camp in 1944. His memoir recounts that while being forced to carry corpses from the gas chambers to an open-air pyre, he was handed a sack which held little children who were still alive. The guard commanded the sack be thrown into the fire. The woman I play in Just an Ordinary Peasant is a hybrid character created from the memoirs of my uncle, my parents and my own research. She sings and dances and also throws a sack of babies into the fire. This piece explores my own biases as well as questions the culpability of ‘ordinary people’ who were accomplices to the atrocities carried out during the Third Reich.
Dancing Auschwitz
The Documentary
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it
George Santayana
Part 3 is a documentary that captures fragments of our visits to these sites.
My father revisits and re-enacts moments from his past, bringing long-suppressed memories to the surface. In one scene, inside a cattle wagon, he relives his journey to Auschwitz sixty-five years earlier, and seems to enter a trance-like state. The film also reflects my own questions and struggles with Jewish identity.
The photographic work was inspired by the philosopher, Theodor Adorno,
who argues that art must continue after Auschwitz. Its message is a hope
that humanity will continue to overcome its struggle with what Auschwitz
symbolises — the ongoing darkness in our world.
Dancing Auschwitz was driven by a desire to create a new language for engaging with the
Holocaust. I felt that many, especially younger generations, were becoming
desensitised to its story and images. I wanted to wake up the world to the lessons of genocide and to confront the dangers of prejudice and collective intolerance.
When questioned about the work’s appropriateness, my father said: ‘The
dancing was very important because today we are alive. We survived. We were
dancing to the song of survival. We also prayed for the dead at the camps before we
danced.’
My mother simply said: ‘We came from the ashes, now we dance.’
Dancing Auschwitz: The Doco
Dancing Auschwitz.
A documentary by Kris Kerehona
![]() ‘Who would have imagined...?’ Radagost Station, Lodz, Poland | ![]() 'Auschwitz? What is Auschwitz?' | ![]() JUDE. Justine, Gil, Adolek, Jane, Yasmin & Sunny |
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![]() The 3rd Gen |
© Jane Korman 2021



