The most powerful images that deal with Nazism and Holocaust themes are by Anselm Kiefer and Gottfried Helnwein.
The work of both artists are informed by the personal experience of growing up in post-war German speaking countries...
William Burroughs said that the American revolution begins in books and music,
and political operatives implement the changes after the fact.
To this maybe we can add art.
And Helnwein's art might have the capacity to instigate change by piercing the veil of political correctness
to recapture the primitive gesture inherent in art.

Jewish Journal, Los Angeles
Mitchell Waxman

Again and again, Helnwein painted children in brutal, violent settings. He has used Chris tian iconography to depict Nazi officers, and juxtaposed rampaging soldiers with Images of childhood innocence. Visceral reactions come with the territory: one Installation in Cologne was physically attacked by neo Nazis. And yet, he says, he does not set out to shock. "Shock is a useless effect," he says. "Somebody in shock is completely useless. I want to make somebody think".

The Sunday Time, UK, Gerry McCarthy

An extremely impressive work "Selection- Ninth November Night", made in 1988, consisted of a series of uniform, huge images of children's faces, stretching from Cologne's Ludwig Museum to its cathedral. The subtitle, (Ninth November Night), gave the clue to the event the work marked - the start of the Holocaust on Reichskristallnacht, November 9, 1938.
In presenting people with a series of entirely neutral, if rather beautiful, pictures of innocence and implicitly pointing out that just such innocents were sorted and selected for extermination, Helnwein was resurrecting an aspect of the past that most Germans and, perhaps even more so, Austrians, have preferred to forget.
It certainly annoyed someone to the extent that they came and vandalised it, symbolically cutting the throats of some of the images. Selection shares with Helnwein's more sensational work a desire to prod us into thought about our own attitudes and roles.
The real horror, as his work reiterates, is indifference and complacency.

The Irish Times, Aidan Dunne

The presentation in Israel was possible with the generous support of:
The Austrian Cultural Forum Tel Aviv
Trevision Visual Communication Group
Friedman-Benda Gallery, New York
The Israeli Opera

Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany, 1988
Musee'De L'Elysee Lausanne, Switzerland, 1990
Minoriten Church, Museum of Lower Austria, Krems, Austria 1991
City center of Heilbronn, Germany, 1992
Museum St. Ingbert, Albert Weisgerber Stiftung, Saarbrücken, Germany, 1993
Ludwig Institut, Schloss Oberhausen, Germany, 1995
Kulturbrauerei, Berlin, Germany, 1996
Museum of Fine Art, Otaru, Japan, 1996
The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia, 1997
City of Kilkenny, Ireland, 2001
Museum of Tolerance/Simon Wiesenthal Center Los Angeles, 2003
Tel Aviv, Israel, 2010

Museum of Tolerance, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Los Angeles, 09. November 2003
Documentary "Ninth November Night" , Children and the Holocaust in the Art of Gottfried Helnwein

"...In fact, Helnwein's work is insistently open-ended. Like Goya's Disasters of War, his art queries time and again, "How can this have happened?" Sometimes viewers reply, assaulting pictures of innocent children, worshipping those of a murderous dictator. Yet such reactions can only bring us to inquire again, louder and with greater urgency, "How can this have happened?" At last we recognize that Helnwein asks questions not in order to solicit answers - hate has no reason - but rather in order that we might begin to pose our own..."

THE ART OF HUMANITY, by Jonathon Keats

Museum of Tolerance, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Los Angeles, 09. November 2003

Gottfried Helnwein, NINTH NOVEMBER NIGHT, Museum of Tolerance, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Los Angeles

JOURNAL OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF PHILADELPHIA.
Council of the City of Philadelphia
City Council Resolution
16. November 2006

Renowned Austrian-born artist, Gottfried Helnwein has committed himself and his art to reminding the world of the Holocaust. His exhibit, Ninth November Night, consists of 17 children's portraits displayed in commemoration of Kristallnacht. Ninth November Night was originally displayed in 1988 in Cologne, Germany. Days into the exhibit, the paintings were vandalized by neo-Nazis.
This exhibit will have its American premiere in Philadelphia in Spring, 2007; now, therefore be it RESOLVED, by the Council of the City of Philadelphia that the 68th anniversary of Kristallnacht be commemorated, and that Gottfried Helnwein be honored for his artistic contributions.

kristallnacht.helnwein.com

City Council Resolution
16. November 2006
JOURNAL OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF PHILADELPHIA.
COMMEMORATING THE 68TH ANNIVERSARY OF KRISTALLNACHT AND RECOGNIZING THE ARTISTIC CONTRIBUTIONS OF GOTTFRIED HELNWEIN IN KEEPING THE MEMORY OF THE HOLOCAUST ALIVE.

Council of the City of Philadelphia