Susan Wider

Wider has written a fine young adult introduction to the life and art of the German-Jewish artist, Charlotte Salomon, who died at the age of 26 in Auschwitz. She was five-months pregnant. Wider presents the events of Charlotte’s story mostly in chronological order. She includes many images of Salomon’s modernist paintings (influenced by Matisse, van Gogh, and Chagall, among others)—all of them from the artist’s masterpiece, LIFE? OR THEATRE?, an autobiographical compilation of images (some presented in comic-book-like strips), words, and even directions about thematic music (from Bach and Bizet to folksongs) that should accompany the viewing and reading of the text. The young Salomon was heard humming as she worked in seclusion in a hotel room in southern France.

Charlotte’s short life was profoundly tragic. In 1926, when she was nine, her mother died—of the flu, she was told. As a young woman, she would learn that innumerable members of her maternal family, including her mother and aunt, had ended their own lives. Determined to become an artist from a fairly young age, Charlotte was able to attend art school in Berlin until the restrictions against Jews made this impossible. She fell in love with Alfred Wolfsohn, a much older man, voice coach, and possible lover of her opera-star stepmother, Paula. Having survived a highly traumatic experience in World War I, Wolfsohn had his own demons. His appearance in the young artist’s life was a critical one. His remarks about her painting gave her reason to believe in herself and a way to cope with the depression that increasingly loomed.

The darkness wasn’t only within; the dangers of Nazism were omnipresent and intensifying. After Kristallnacht in 1938, Charlotte’s father, Dr. Albert Salomon, a prominent Berlin surgeon and university professor, had been seized and taken to Sachsenhausen, a Nazi labour camp. Paula used her many connections to have him released. He ultimately was, weighing a mere 80 pounds. At this point, Albert and Paula knew the family must flee Berlin. Before escaping to Amsterdam, they first sent their daughter off to southern France, which was then unoccupied, to stay with her maternal grandparents, a disturbed and disturbing elderly couple. A condition of Charlotte’s visa was that she was to be caring for the pair. This was no ordinary task. Her grandmother became increasingly suicidal as Hitler’s troops advanced, finally succeeding in ending her life, and Charlotte was left with her brute of a grandfather, whose abuse was not only emotional but likely sexual as well. Beyond getting Charlotte to physical safety, Wider doesn’t comment on what her parents knew about the stability of the grandparents. Had Paula and Albert been aware of the dysfunction in these people and the deleterious impact it could have on an introverted, sensitive, psychologically vulnerable young woman?

Wider shows how Salomon’s passion for art was intensely therapeutic, saving her from a dark emotional inheritance and the torment of dealing with her grandfather. The young woman also received psychological support from a wealthy German-American woman, Ottilie Moore, who took Jewish refugee children into L’Hermitage, her villa in the south of France. Ottilie was an art collector. Recognizing Charlotte’s talent, she purchased, framed, and hung the artist’s work in her home, further boosting the young woman’s confidence. She also gave Salomon a place of refuge in which to escape her grandfather and to paint. In the end, LIFE? OR THEATRE would be dedicated to Ottilie.

Before Charlotte was transported to Auschwitz with Alexander Nagler, —Ottilie’s friend and former lover, whom Charlotte had married—she gave the entire bundle of her paintings to Dr. Georges Miridis, a family friend. “Keep the package safe” she told him; “It’s my whole life.” Yes, it was. It was not only a record of her brief, intense existence but also the very thing that had kept her alive.

While I’ve looked at a few articles on Charlotte Salomon, I haven’t yet read LIFE? OR THEATRE? or Mary Lower Felstiner’s “remarkable” biography of Salomon, TO PAINT HER LIFE. As a result, I’m unable to judge how well author Susan Wider has adapted the details of Salomon’s life and art for a young adult audience. My impression, however, is that this is a reliable work. It doesn’t appear to downplay or avoid the tragedy and horror of Charlotte’s life. It also celebrates the artist’s passionate commitment to creative work that prevented her from falling into complete despair. I recommend it.… (altro)