Theresa Senato Edwards

Painting Czeslawa Kwoka ~ Honoring Children of the Holocaust 

(unbound CONTENT, 2012)

 A work of haunting beauty, this unique book juxtaposes photographs of ordinary children on the threshold of extraordinary, incomprehensible, heart-rending violence, with lush paintings and lyrical poems that sing with life and hope. The children of the Holocaust are well honored here, if such a thing is possible.

                                                                                            ~ Dr. Robert Johnson, professor, American University

Lori Schreiner's portraits and Theresa Senato Edwards' poems give voice to the voiceless, the silenced children of the Holocaust. Schreiner and Edwards pay homage through simple, human gestures of art and poetry. This is a powerfully illuminating and memorable work, haunting in its intensity.             ~ Ivy Alvarez

Part research, part offering, this ekphrastic dialogue between painter and poet is a delicate and compassionate physiognomy. The archived faces of children who perished in concentration camps are an interpretable terrain, mined for traces of human narration. Schreiner and Edwards begin here to reanimate not the images of these departed children--an untenable task--but the impossible question that lingers alongside atrocity: "How is it that we mourn for someone whom we didn't know?"          ~ Noah Saterstrom

The painted images, poems, and photographs lock together inside me with a deep wrenching as I read this book. The colors and textures of Lori's paint strokes and Theresa's words bring each short life into focus, each child becoming more singular, more real, and more achingly tender. This collaboration is a gift.

                                                                                        ~ Lydia Thomson, River Gallery School Artistic Director