Is My Dolly Jewish?

#6, Auschwitz Album Revisited

Oil Painting by Dr. Pat Mercer Hutchens

A quarter of a million Jews were crammed in a ghetto in Lodz, Poland at the start of the Nazi’s war. By the time the war was over only 800 survived, including 12 children. The story of one of those children– Sylvia Perlmutter Rozines– is presented in a new book by Jennifer Roy entitled Yellow Star. Reading it, I was moved by something Sylvia said as a little child during the roundup by the Nazis. She asked, “Mommy, is my dolly Jewish?”

That is the title of this painting of women and children standing in front of one of the smoking crematoria in Auschwitz. Among them I placed little Sylvia and her dolly, both with yellow stars.