Thomas Dellert-Bergh | Letters from Hell, 2000

Description

Thomas Dellert-Dellacroix (born in Stockholm in 1953) has devoted the past forty-five years to a spectrum of artistic forms, including photography, short film, theatre, music, painting, and installation art. With over 200 exhibitions across Europe and the United States, my work graces museums, official institutions, and private collections worldwide. Notably, my pieces feature in esteemed repositories such as the Absolut Vodka Collection, the Heinz Collection, the Swedish Royal Family Collection, and the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC.

As a contemporary art photographer, Thomas Dellert has had over a hundred international exhibitions in museums and galleries around the globe. In addition, his work has been featured in many international art photography magazine covers and extensive reportage. 

As a contemporary, provocative art photographer, he was then working under the name of Dellacroix in symbiosis with former wife and partner Agnieszka Dellert-Dellfina between 2000 to 2008, when they divorced and went their separate ways. He has also collaborated with photographer Ellen von Unwerth and photographers like Bruno Ehrs, Raphael Yoshitomi, and Philipp Mueller. He now lives in Florence, Italy, and has worked with artist Vava Venezia since 2013.

Never Again is Now! -SHOAH Museum art for sale-

“Over the last 45 years, this collection of works has gradually evolved. It’s vital to keep the story alive and to ensure the truth reaches out, especially during these times of denial; with the help of this project that combines my interest in history and humanity and the urge to share the Holocaust’s story loudly and clearly.
Moreover, it is a warning and wake-up call for the younger generation, which is easily misled.

Today, we face new dangers in the form of New full-out anti-Semitism, Neo-Nazism and Islamic fundamentalism, and Islamic terror.
We all need to take these threats very seriously. We must do everything we can to prevent a repetition of this aspect of modern history.
After the attacks on Israel in 2023 that mirrored the atrocities of the Holocaust, parts of the world once again turned Anti-Semitic, and now again, we could hear young people infected by hate shouting, “Gas the Jews.”

It is a scary reminder that history often repeats itself. Now more than ever, we must stand tall against these dangerous movements and support anti-Jewish Terrorism in the name of humanity as a whole.
We cannot be bystanders or look the other way. Now, we must be brave and stand up against hate.
Today, in 2023/24, I still work tirelessly with art in all its many forms, but my heart is with this art collection for donation. I also worked for the past 11 years in symbiosis with my Jewish wife, and together, we create art for peace and humanity and against all kinds of racism.
My interest in the Holocaust evolved as a child from my grandmother’s stories of how, as a Swedish tourist in Germany in the 1930s, she was thrown off a tram by two SA soldiers – Sturmabteilung – for insisting on wearing a Swedish flag instead of the Star of David on her and my mother’s coats. As a result of these stories and after seeing the documentaries from the liberation of Buchenwald and Bergen Belsen in the cinemas in Sweden, I began creating art about its horrors at age ten. My childhood drawings and watercolors remain in my possession.

During the 1920s, my grandmother was good friends with Raoul Wallenberg’s mother in Stockholm, so I have also had contact with his family. My Shoah collection includes one of his Swedish military hats and other original memorabilia. Additionally, I have been in contact with Per Anger since 1986, when he visited my art exhibit in New York. During the Holocaust, Mr. Anger was Raoul Wallenberg’s associate in Budapest. He saved many Jewish people with Wallenberg, risking their lives in the process.

In 2000, I had the opportunity to meet Elie Wiesel when I exhibited some of my Shoah art at the first International Forum on the Holocaust Conference in Stockholm. As an Absolut Vodka Artist, I donated a Shoah artwork titled “Playing for Time” to President Michel Roux.
It now resides in the collection of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.
Several of my works have an educational approach, but others are more poetic, reflecting one of mankind’s darkest periods. It is impossible to portray the horrors of the Holocaust justly since the scale of the crime is beyond all comprehension. Despite this, we must still try for the sake of our children and the millions who died. Moreover, I believe that we must approach the subject in different ways to reach as many people as possible while also conveying the message to future generations, not just to Jews for whom the Holocaust may be a family memory.

We must tell all people, regardless of their faith or nationality, the story of the Shoah so they won’t be deceived. While it may be hard to understand or even accept, the truth cannot be questioned or denied. Art is only one tool but often a very effective one in this mission to “tell the story.” Through art, we reach and connect with groups of people who aren’t interested in reading books about history or watching documentaries about the Holocaust. I see my humble involvement through this collection of pictures as no more than a handful of dust, yet this dust is a part of our testament, my contribution to collective memory.
I photographed both Auschwitz Birkenau and Kazimierz, the Jewish quarter in Krakow, during the winter of 2007, and I have combined images so that I can tell the story chronologically.

The ‘triptychs’ in the form of vast landscapes in silence and crumbling ruins of gas chambers take the form of organic monsters. Images of piled-up shoes, glasses, pots, and pans serve as harsh reminders of people’s shattered lives. The walls still bear inscriptions of pain and the worn-down floors on which thousands walked on their way to a premature death bear evidence of the agony of those men and women.
As if by a razor, the barbed wire cuts through the clear blue sky.

There is all of this, frozen in time, covered in frosty ice, like the annual rings of a tree in the forest of remembrance. At the same time, the images contrast with each other while telling the same story. In short, they tell a story of pain.
In this frozen landscape, time stands still, but thought and spirit travel freely: A silent hell in which ashes and everyday items, such as spoons and forks, hide under a frozen pond. In silence and with respect for the many victims of this landscape, I entered it.”

• Thomas Dellert-Bergh