Antisemitic persecution in Europe sent waves of Jewish refugees (primarily from Nazi Germany and the Pale of Settlement in Russia) to Boston and other parts of the United States. The work of three artists from the Danforth’s Permanent Collection bears witness to their desire to maintain a connection with their Jewish heritage and to never forget their experiences. Karl Zerbe’s Ghetto series is a testament to the struggle to survive the Nazi’s segregation of the Jews from the rest of the population before the Holocaust. Hyman Bloom’s Rabbi with Torah–quick sketches drawn with red pencil on upcycled stationery–vividly display religious threads from his upbringing in a Jewish village in Latvia to his childhood in Boston. The brilliantly saturated painting of a Torah Cover by Renee Rothbein displays her relationship with Judaism.

The selection of these works from the Danforth Art Museum’s Permanent Collection are installed in the Danforth’s gallery to complement the themes covered in the Americans and the Holocaust, a traveling exhibition on view and open to the public in the Whittemore Library at Framingham State University.