For all those who remain

Concerning the Titles of Some of My series

When Hannah Arendt, in her book on the Eichman trial, used the subtitle, “the Banality of Evil”; it was the banality of the total evil of the Holocaust that she found terrifying. She was concerned that the “banal” could have such a profound and evil effect on the world.

“Evil is never ‘radical’; it is only extreme. And it possesses neither depth nor any demonic dimension. It can overgrow and lay waste the whole world precisely because it spreads like a fungus on the surface. It is ‘thought-defying’ because though it tries to reach some depth, to go to the roots, and the moment is concerned itself with evil, it is frustrated because there is nothing - that is its ‘banality’. Only the good has depth and can be radical.”

Hannah Arendt (responding to Gershom Scholem regarding “the controversy” over her choice of words for her subtitle)

When I was beginning my series on the Holocaust, I wasn’t aware of “the controversy” surrounding her words. Though not Jews, my late wife Mary and I had a long-standing involvement in Jewish culture and the Holocaust. I served as a Vice President of the Holocaust Resource Center of Buffalo & Western New York (Mary had also been on the Board). I know the subtitle only as one rather common term sometimes appearing in talk of Holocaust issues.

There are selected images from the book, if you would like a print of an individual artwork, please contact me for details through my contact page.