Filed under: Active Decency | Tags: art, Auschwitz and Ethics, Dina Babbitt, Human Rights, Morality, U.N.
Sixty-four years ago today, on October 24, 1945 the United Nations was born, kicking and screaming after 5 years of labour, and covered in the blood of innumerable innocents. More or less.
Today, these words from U.N. Headquarters:
“The United Nations is doing its utmost to respond — to address the big issues, to look at the big picture. We are forging a new multilateralism that can deliver real results for all people, especially those most in need.”
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
Message on UN Day, 24 October 2009(Source: http://www.un.org/en/events/unday/2009/)
However noble we may perceive our cause to be, we are wrong to punish innocents in its name. The Museum at Auschwitz, in denying Dina Babbitt her property based on whatever arbitration, has performed an epic fail on moral, ethical and humanitarian levels.
As the United Nations enters its 65th year, I wish them all, each and every nation of them, only one thing – unity. It would be good if we could all see even briefly, through the eyes of those we victimize in the name of our particular ideologies. That would help unite the nations for sure.
Filed under: Active Decency | Tags: Active Decency, art, Auschwitz and Ethics, Dina Babbitt, ethics, Gypsy Portraits, ICOM, Museums, Petition
‘Enough good people’ not doing nothing…
Today, Edmund Burke might fret a little less about the triumph of evil, which he said needs only “…for enough good people to do nothing.”
Until recently, the Ethics Committee of the International Council of Museums, while aware of Dina Babbitt’s portraits and aspects of the controversy surrounding them, had not closely scrutinized Dina’s claim. (No one had asked them to, and the rest of the planet offers new ethical challenges daily, no doubt.) It appears now however, that something is about to change.
Perhaps ‘enough good people’ have written letters and signed petitions to bring Dina Babbitt’s Gypsy Portraits to ICOM’s direct attention, specifically to the attention of ICOM’s Ethics Committee. They have spent the last several months taking a closer look, it seems.
I have written to ICOM a few times myself, and have exchanged emails with only one person there, right from the start. Although I do not consider these messages to be official ICOM statements, I do consider them to contain information from the proverbial “reliable source”. I include them here so that the reader doesn’t have to rely on my possibly biased interpretation. Instead, you can read the letter for yourself and jump immediately to your own conclusions.
Essentially, my last letter asked for an assurance that with Dina’s passing, ICOM’s interest wouldn’t wane or get side-tracked. The response, I received very promptly.
Date: 28 September 2009 (23:50hrs/Aust)
To: Mr Tim Thibeault, Ottawa <XXXX@xxx.ca>
From: Bernice Murphy (Chairperson, ICOM Ethics Committee)
Re: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Vs. Claim of the late Mrs D G Babbitt
Cc: ICOM Director General, ICOM President, ICOM Secretariat
Dear Mr Thibeault,
I write to acknowledge your message of last Wednesday (23 September 2009).
It was with sadness that I learned of the death of Mrs Babitt recently, on 29 July, and condolences are due to her family and friends.
Mrs Babbitt’s claim for return of her works, and the position taken by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, will be discussed when the ICOM Ethics Committee meets in October, in Paris.
For various reasons, the Committee has not met formally since May 2008, although much work continues in the meantime by email and other channels.
I will respond to you after the Ethics Committee has had the opportunity to consider the case again, in the light of the most detailed research and recent advice we have been able to gather through our museum networks.
Sincerely,
Bernice Murphy
_________________
Bernice L. Murphy
Chairperson, ICOM Ethics Committee/International Council of Museums, Paris
What if there were a special day each year when all people were able to look objectively within themselves, and see clearly where they may have injured another person? And then, what if they did whatever was in their power to make amends for the bad things they had done? Wouldn’t that be nice?
If I were God, I’d be sure to include such a day in My calendar.
Filed under: Active Decency | Tags: Auschwitz, Dina Babbitt, Human Rights, ICOM, Museums, Roma Portraits, U.N., UNESCO
Research into the UN Human Rights Council complaints procedure indicates that a complaint will not be heard by the UN Human Rights Council while it is already being considered by another organization (such as ICOM).
So, another twelve weeks having passed, the appropriate course of action seems to be to write a follow up note to the Ethics Committee.
_________________________________________________________
September 23, 2009
Ottawa, Canada
Dear Mrs Murphy,
Another three months has passed, and I am writing to enquire if there has been any progress in ICOM’s investigation into the Auschwitz Birkenau State Museum and the portraits painted there by Dina Babbitt. More directly perhaps, I am seeking reassurance that this matter has not been allowed to fall aside, or diminish in importance, since the death of Mrs. Babbitt on July 29th this year. It remains a question of an ongoing Human Rights violation by a UNESCO endorsed institution.
As you may recall, it was Mrs Babbitt’s most heartfelt desire that her works should be returned to her own hands, “…the hands that made them…”, and then be passed on to her children and grandchildren since her interaction with the subjects of the portraits, and their individual roles in Dina Babbitt’s life story, constitute a vital part of her legacy.
I believe, Mrs Murphy, that the moments passed in the making of those portraits represented for Dina Babbitt, a sense of knowing powerlessness that is, mercifully, inaccessible to a majority of contemporary people. In a brief note to me in January of this year, Mrs Babbitt said, in part,”…But when I was refused to take my paintings home in 1973 at the museum, I felt as helpless as when I was a prisoner again…”
Can we honestly suppose that any institution should be so empowered? Is there any statement in any document from the UN, UNESCO, or ICOM that supports the right of the Museum to deprive Dina Babbitt of her property? I believe not.
I look forward to any information you can provide at this time and I thank you.
Sincerely,
Tim Thibeault
Ottawa, Canada
cc: Karin Babitt
cc: Michele Kane
cc: http://FreeDinasArt.wordpress.com
_______________________________________________________
Filed under: Active Decency | Tags: art, Auschwitz, Cognitive dissonance, decency, Dina Babbitt, Gypsy Portraits, Human Dignity, Human Rights, UNESCO
UNESCO Criterion under which Auschwitz enjoys “World Heritage” Status.
“Criterion (vi): be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal value.”
“Auschwitz – Birkenau, monument to the deliberate genocide of the Jews by the Nazi regime (Germany 1933-1945) and to the deaths of countless others bears irrefutable evidence to one of the greatest crimes ever perpetrated against humanity. It is also a monument to the strength of the human spirit which in appalling conditions of adversity resisted the efforts of the German Nazi regime to suppress freedom and free thought and to wipe out whole races. The site is a key place of memory for the whole of humankind for the holocaust, racist policies and barbarism; it is a place of our collective memory of this dark chapter in the history of humanity, of transmission to younger generations and a sign of warning of the many threats and tragic consequences of extreme ideologies and denial of human dignity.”
source: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/31
Does anyone else see a source of cognitive dissonance in juxtaposition of the denial of human dignity experienced by Dina Babbitt as she was arbitrarily deprived of her property by the International Auschwitz Committee, with the spectacular display of Olympic-calibre rhetorical gymnastics in the above paragraph?
The shabbiest of behaviours can be dressed in the noblest of words; the naked truth is that the denial of respect for #61016’s Human Rights and Dignity constitutes the active and deliberate continuation of treatment she has received at the hands of all Auschwitz officials since Dina Gottliebova was first assigned a number in 1943.
I strongly disapprove of this.
I believe UNESCO needs to reconsider Auschwitz’s status as a World Heritage Site in light of the IAC’s ongoing violation of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
________________________________________________________
Further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Former_UNESCO_World_Heritage_Sites
Filed under: Active Decency | Tags: art, Auschwitz, Dina Babbitt, Final Solution, holocaust, Human Rights, Museums, Poland, President Lech Kaczynski, Roma Portraits
Give Them to Everybody
Although the current administration of Auschwitz, has seen the end results for Dina Babbitt, of one “Final Solution”, I would suggest that the question of de-accessioning and returning Dina Babbitt’s property (and human rights) has not yet been satisfactorily answered.
Since the true value of Dina’s work, as stated by the Museum’s own apologists, is in effect to prolong the memory of the Holocaust, why not just publish high-resolution copies of her work on the net?
Return the originals to their rightful owners and make copies available to the whole world.
That way, everyone who has heard Dina’s story will be able to see what all the fuss is about. Being only facsimiles behind a glass screen instead of originals, the experience of seeing Dina’s art, life-sized, on-line and behind glass, would be aesthetically identical to seeing high-resolution copies of the portraits behind glass at their current location in the Polish Abattoir of the Soul.
And, just to clarify the source of this ongoing tragedy, Auschwitz may have begun as a German sin, but it is now a one hundred percent Polish sin. (Is Lech Kaczynski a president, or a puppet?)
The seeds of Human Rights Abuse, planted in long-dead German ideology, have thrived and blossomed in 21st Century Polish ideology, nurtured by the recurring failures of the Polish Government and of ICOM to shake off ideological tyranny, and to comport themselves in a way that respects both humanity and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
_______________________________________
You can find another way to practice active decency here, at Ed Cherniga’s very worthy art undertaking in Philadelphia, USA:
Filed under: Active Decency | Tags: Auschwitz, Dina Babbitt, Human Dignity, ICOM, Museums
September 7th, 2009 :
It was sixty-five years ago today, that Dina Gottliebova arrived, with her mother, at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
Although the camp is under completely new management, and now under the aegis of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as a World Heritage Site, the current Directors of Auschwitz continue to deny Dina Gottliebova’s human rights by having arbitrarily deprived her of her property until her dying day.
You’d think some people would be ashamed to look in a mirror.
Filed under: Active Decency | Tags: Auschwitz, Cognitive dissonance, decency, Dina Babbitt, ICOM, Morality
In Sanford, California in 1957 Leon Festinger identified one of the most lamentable states in which the human mind can find itself. When we try to hold conflicting ideas simultaneously, our human tendency is to experience a sense of anxiety, leaving us in a sorry mental condition. Festinger called the cause of this condition ‘cognitive dissonance’.
Consider the plight of twenty-first century tobacco smokers. They know (and by “they” I mean “we”) that smoking tobacco can, or might, or probably will kill them. And yet, some continue to smoke in spite of such knowledge. THAT is cognitive dissonance. Continuing an evil practice while knowing that it is wrong creates cognitive dissonance. If you are going to do that, try to ensure that you are hurting only yourself, and the world can have no issue with your choices.
But there is at least one instance in which a person can participate fully in knowingly committing evil deeds, and still escape the pangs of both conscience and cognitive dissonance. That instance is when one is part of a committee.
Much like the members of a firing squad who can convince themselves that they had no part in killing a human being because there were others present who were equally likely to have fired a live round at a living person, the members of a committee (from what I have observed) can count themselves as highly respected intellectuals, as doctors, humanitarians and even religious teachers. They can consider themselves “respectable” even though their collective arbitrary decisions profoundly affect the lives of people they haven’t ever met.
Members of a committee, if they are shallow enough human beings, can convince themselves (but not me) that they are doing good and important work when they deny others the human rights that their own parent organization declares to be universal. They can commit with impunity the very sins they claim to hate and to be trying to stop from ever happening again. And they can defend their decisions with the most scurrilous and spurious reasons.
Somewhere within the first five books of the Bible, a person truly interested in religion could find four little words well worth contemplating. Those words are, “Thou shalt not steal.”
And yet these same people can know that someone else has been profoundly hurt by their choices and actions and still feel no sense of responsibility at all. No cognitive dissonance can occur where conscience is absent. That is a shame. It is especially regrettable to see such behaviour originating with people who are trying to convince themselves and the world that the evil they are currently committing is somehow different and more noble than the same evil as practiced by others in the past.
Such people, whether committee members or not, are wrong to hurt others only to glorify their own evil deeds as acts of nobility or civilization. In their own minds, they may convince themselves that they are good people, but Leon Festinger might have told them otherwise.
Filed under: Active Decency | Tags: art, Auschwitz, Dina Babbitt, Human Dignity, Human Rights, U.N., UNESCO
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in Article 17.2 declares, “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.” You’ve probably seen that someplace before, eh?
The decision by every consecutive administration of Auschwitz, that the interests of their institution should outweigh the declared Human Rights of #61016, is an arbitrary decision. This has been the case since that institution opened its gates for business in the first half of the last century. More recent administrations have addressed her by her human name, but all have , effectively, treated Dina Babbitt as a number, a thing, unworthy of full human rights. I wish they would stop that.
What I want to find out now is this: who makes the final decision as to whether keeping Dina Babbitt’s Art from her was, and is, an arbitrary decision? I want to know, who exactly is the arbiter of arbitrariness?
That person (or committee) decides whether the good folks at Auschwitz are in violation of the Declaration of Human Rights, and what can be done to rectify that violation. That’s somebody with an interesting job. Probably an interesting person, too.
I wonder if it’s someone who works at UNESCO?
Filed under: Active Decency | Tags: Auschwitz, Dina Babbitt, ethics, Gypsy Portraits, Human Dignity, ICOM, Morality, portraits, U.N.
With Dina Babbitt’s death on July 29th, the institutions involved in the arbitrary denial of her property and her human rights, have missed an opportunity to do what is right and to be seen doing so. Instead they chose to stay on a path of denial, in hopes perhaps, that Dina’s passing will prove in some way advantageous to their aims.
The need to recognize and respect Dina Babbitt’s human rights has not lessened with her passing. If anything, it becomes more important now than ever that Dina Babbitt not slip quietly into history as just another example of man’s inhumanity to man, as witness to the trans-generational nature of crude human brutality both physical and spiritual.
By respecting Dina Babbitt’s right to actually possess her own property and to pass it to the hands of her children, we do not endanger the memory of the Holocaust; we will not cause it to be forgotten. We will only bring it one step closer to being truly ended.
The portraits at the center of this issue were made by the hands of Dina Babbitt. This is unquestioned fact. The work was extorted from her. This too is indisputable. The subjects of the portraits have no living descendants. No entity other than the Estate of Dina Gottliebova Babbitt can claim ownership of them except spuriously and dishonestly. The ethical and moral framework in which they are to be considered has been established and very clearly defined by the United Nations itself in its Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That declaration now needs to be applied.
The International Council of Museums has been aware of Dina Babbitt’s claims, and we are told, has been looking into them, for a longer time than Dina spent in Auschwitz actually making the portraits. A public statement from ICOM on this matter would seem appropriate at this time.
If the greater good of society is to be realized, it is not by demurring over the human rights of even one person that we will do it.
Now would be a very good time to contact the members of the ICOM Ethics Committee and ask what they are doing to enforce the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (art. 17.2) as it pertains to Dina Gottliebova, Auschwitz prisoner #61016.
The ICOM Ethics Committee can be reached at
Now would be a very good time to Free Dina’s Art.
