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.
we came from the ashes….
AND NOW WE DANCE
My parents migrated to Australia in 1949, four years after walking out of Auschwitz. They worked hard rebuilding their lives, but not only did they work hard, they also partied hard. Every year they threw a compulsory dress up party for all their friends – nearly all of them Holocaust survivors.
This video is dedicated to my mother and father, Marysia and Adolek Kohn, and their friends, who rose above their tragic past with a burning desire to dance and celebrate life.
My recent project, Dancing Auschwitz, triggered much controversy. When questioned about the appropriateness of the work, my father replied: 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’s response was: We came from the ashes, and now we dance!
we came from the ashes... AND NOW WE DANCE!
 Nina Narodowski |  Nina in Mt Scopus Uniform |
|---|---|
 Madja Ahouvi |  Hela & Rose Warshtawski, Topcia & Natan Warshtawski, Marysia, Mietek Gringlass & Madja Ahouvi |
 Mum and Dad (Marysia & Adolek) |  Mum (Marysia Kohn) |
 Marysia standing on the table. Make Love not War! |  Nina Narodowski |
 Mum & ? |  Morry, Sevek & Ellen Warren |
 Morry |  Morry & Isotta Zyk |
 |  Leda Gringlas & David Prince |