JB18

WHITE ROSE COMPETITION – BREAKING THROUGH

I have chosen to create a 3D living artwork to symbolise oppression and resistance. I have done this using plants (by cultivating beans in cotton wool) representing life and the spirit of the Jewish people and chicken wire representing their oppression by the Nazis. The chicken wire also symbolises the barbed wire fences that surrounded the concentration camps and kept our people imprisoned and void of basic human rights. It was a time where we were separated from our families, some murdered in cold blood, some forced to do manual labour, others had experiments conducted on them, all as a result of an unjustified deep hatred. The act of resistance is portrayed by the plants which have grown through the chicken wire and have managed to survive and exit from seeds to sprouts through first the soil and then the chicken wire portraying all the hardships our people had to face, just as the spirit of the resistance flourished, even in captivity, during the darkest of days for our people. The darkness that surrounded the Jewish spirit is shown by the black cardboard that is wrapped around the container holding the plants. The beans made it through the chicken wire which is exactly what the Jewish people managed to do through the holocaust. They resisted and never gave up and we continue to grow as a nation. Despite the Nazis best efforts to eradicate our entire nation, we survived. We were strong and stuck together and we stood up for what we believed in and for each other, proving once again that we are stronger together. By doing this we have built the nation that we have today. May we continue to grow from strength to strength. Am Yisrael Chai!