Solomon Radasky was an Auschwitz survivor with the Auschwitz registration number 128232. The numerals add up to 18 which forms the word "life" in Hebrew. Mr. Radasky worked near the crematoria hauling sand to spread over the ashes of the dead.
I was doing research into the number tattoos used in Nazi concentration camps. I found the following links that provided me an example of a man (Mr. Radasky) that did all he could to survive in the midst of one of the worlds worst events.
Solomon Radasky A Story of Survival
As soon as the challenge came up, I knew what I wanted to say , but I just couldn't decide if I should proceed. I am not Jewish, but I have a strong affiliation with the Jewish people and the struggles they have had to endure. I remember watching documentaries and reading books about World War II and the horrors that so many people had to endure, that the entire world had to endure at the hands of hate.
This image is dedicated to the concept of compassion and love, a far cry from the actions and hatred that created these tattoos. This is also to the six million who died at the hands of hate and to the millions of men and women throughout the world that fought that hate. That we can still have hate and destruction in places throughout the work such as Dafur is beyond all comprehension. When will we learn?
I really struggled with a title for this that conveys the horrors of this event in a simple and poignant way, and finally decided to contact a good DPC friend and member of the Jewish community levyj413. Thanks to Jeff for bouncing ideas off of as I really did not want to offend those that this image was meant to memorialize.
Editing: Crop, noise ninja, levels adjustment, curves, desaturation using hue/saturation, USM at 15,50,0 to increase local contrast. Burn, dodge around hand to increase dirty feel. Blur hot pixel areas and around number. Resize for web, noise ninja, USM, added duplicate layer and USM at large radius to further dirty the palm fo the hand- masking out the arm, slight adjustment to sepia tone, curves.
Post Challenge: I really was torn as to whether to add the swastika to the image or not. I had an outtake I liked a lot, but I really wanted people to feel the hate in the actions, so with the guidance of a few DPC friends, I reshot with this hateful symbol. In hindsight, I really wish I had entered the image without the symbol because I really hate looking at the image...
Outtake:
Statistics
Place: 24 out of 126 Avg (all users): 5.9375 Avg (commenters): 8.0000 Avg (participants): 5.9804 Avg (non-participants): 5.9091 Views since voting: 2406 Views during voting: 304 Votes: 128 Comments: 14 Favorites: 0
I'll be honest... I didn't notice the swastika. I've seen these numbers on patients before, and they're so shocking and profound, I guess I was just awed by the power of the actual subject. Still a great image to get a message across and so well done is something... scores are just scores.
So I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this going to be controversial. I will have to come back and survey the aftermath. Some will love this. Others? Not so much. We'll see..
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