Shachar Leven

The Pen and the Sword

After infiltrating the Vilna ghetto on a precarious rescue mission only days before its final liquidation, Jewish artist and partisan Alexander Bogen was plagued by a reverberating question: “What motivates someone at the precipice of death to engage in artistic creation?” An artist and a native of Vilna, Bogen neither forsook his artistry nor ceased to sketch the people, places and events he encountered following the Nazi occupation of Lithuania. However, it was only after returning to the... Continue reading