The Holocaust and Legos

This blog is interested in how genocides are portrayed, both in traditional and untraditional settings. Likewise, we are interested in the responses these presentations attract.

We present, with this in mind: the legoization of the Holocaust. I should note that by posting these we do not mean to diminish the events, but rather introduce images that have been controversial and merit, in our minds, some discussion.

These are the work of the Polish artist Zbigniew Libera. Some (or perhaps all) of these were featured in a controversial 2002 exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York, entitled Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/ Recent Art.

Libera describes his intent: "My ability to work with objects is taken from everyday urban contemporary life. In my study of the development of correctional devices and educational toys, I see such devices reveal more about a society and its mechanisms for creating and enforcing its norms that any study of a society could."

Yet these images are brutal (I have posted some of the less overt examples). The fact that they presented as children's toys is discomfiting (note the age limits for the boxed sets on the left).

I wonder if we tend to envision genocides so completely from the perspective of the victims that presentations of perpetrators -- particularly ones that do not make a clear stance on the crimes involved -- seem offensive.

Do we need representations of these events necessarily to involve judgment? Might a depiction of this sort, one that does not comment on the brutality of the event, even as it packages it in as something as common as a popular toy, be interpreted as a slight? And if it is interpreted as such, how should we understand the artist? Or the role of the viewer? Are these images dangerous?

Libera has done more related art. The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota has a comprehensive presentation both of the Lego set and others.