FACES THAT SPEAK: Artist Debra Kapnek’s painting of Holocaust survivors, titled “18 Enduring Voices,” is the subject of a short film followed by a talk at The Jewish Center Princeton.

By Anne Levin

It has been 77 years since the end of the Holocaust. Like numerous other religious organizations throughout the world, The Jewish Center Princeton will memorialize the six million Jews who were murdered, and honor those who survived, to mark Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) on Wednesday, April 27 starting at 6 p.m.

The program begins with a short film about 18 Enduring Voices, a painting of Holocaust survivors by Philadelphia area artist Debra Kapnek. Marcel Groen, son of one of the survivors in the painting, will speak, and Kapnek will talk about her experiences painting her subjects. A Q&A and evening service will follow.

Kapnek, who earned degrees in art at Temple and George Washington universities, started painting portraits after her brother returned from working in Mali, Africa, with slides of some of the people he encountered. “He encouraged me to paint them, to try to raise money for people there who were suffering from a drought,” Kapnek said. “That was my first series of portraits from photographs.”

Trained to work from life rather than photographs, Kapnek was reluctant at first. “But it went better than I expected,” she said. “I had a show, and that led to a commission from the American Association for Ethiopian Jews to paint Jews in Ethiopia who were under house arrest at that time. That led me later to paint portraits [from photographs] of the people of Darfur. They were used to raise awareness about the genocide that was happening to them. And probably still is.”

It was a chance meeting with a Holocaust survivor in her neighborhood more than 20 years ago that led Kapnek to consider a different focus. “When he started to tell me his story, I realized his face was speaking as much as his words,” she said. “I decided to do a portrait of him.”

That led to The Miracle of Survival, a large composition made up of paintings of six survivors whom Kapnek found by making connections. “One person would lead me to another,” she said. Next, she painted Chai, which portrayed 18 women, based on photographs Kapnek took herself.

Years went by, and she decided to do another series — 18 Enduring Voices. The paintings are in a structure that resembles the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. “The images of the faces are meant to be set in stone, as are the stones of the wall in Jerusalem that have endured over time to remind us of what came before,” she said.

Over the years she has devoted to these projects, Kapnek has interviewed and photographed more than 50 Holocaust survivors. “A lot of times, I felt like I knew them, and they felt like they knew me. It was kind of a mystical thing,” she said. “I didn’t take all their stories — just the basic facts of their lives and what they wanted to share. But meeting them, it almost felt like it gave me strength just to be near them. They were all warm, supportive, giving, and loving people.”

The film 18 Enduring Voices was sponsored by the Max and Bella Stein Foundation, for educational purposes as well as to accompany the painting. Kapnek has used it for four Zoom fundraisers during the pandemic, to benefit both Holocaust education and KAVOD SHEF, an organization that supports the needs of the remaining survivors who live in poverty in the United States.

Kapnek will be on hand for the program, which will also be livestreamed. Admission is free and open to all. The Jewish Center is at 435 Nassau Street. Visit Thejewishcenter.org for more information.

“My point in doing these portraits was to monumentalize their faces, which are filled with expression, sorrow, wisdom, life, and light — not just the darkness we would have expected,” Kapnek said. “What drove me to begin was this incredible reverence I have for them for having survived, and gone on to live a whole new life. From the time I learned about the Holocaust, I never thought I would have been able to do what they did.”