102,000 is Not Just a Number

102,000 lives were lost in the Holocaust in the Netherlands. This painting was born from that truth.

It does not tell a story — it holds a presence.

An unseen eye watches — not belonging to one person, but witnessing for all. It asks us to remember. To feel. To stop looking away.

The hands below press into the door — carrying the weight of the lost. The hands above reach for light — a gesture of release, of grace.

A faint Menorah glows through the keyhole: the quiet light of faith, of spiritual resistance.

Even in silence, the soul endures.

From afar, the painting waits. Up close, it speaks. Each mark is a life — not erased, not forgotten. This is both a remembrance and a warning. Because the silence of the past still speaks — now.

This work stands as a response — a call to remember the 102,000 lost in the Netherlands, and a plea to feel not only for what was, but for what still is.

As an artist, I felt a responsibility not to illustrate history, but to confront it —to look into its eye and not look away.

This is my personal act of remembering — one that demanded I not only create the question, but truly feel the answer.