LEADING FINNISH HISTORIAN ON MICHAEL ROGATCHI’s ART
Michael Rogatchi has expressed the tragedy of the Holocaust in quite laconic way. The artist does not cross the border of taste and measure. In the tone of his works, thought is very deep and can still be perfectly self-controlled. And this is especially important while dealing with such a painful theme as reflecting Holocaust.
The one painting, the same after which the exhibition had been named, The Way, was not exhibited in Espoo, however. A couple of months before the exhibition, Michael Rogatchi presented the painting to Simon Wiesenthal who liked it very much and expressed his warm gratitude to Michael.
“It is impossible to have made a better choice for the present made to very this person,” – Alan Levy, well-known American writer and journalist, the author of the famous book The Wiesenthal File, said during a modest but touching ceremony while Rogatchi’s painting had been handed to Wiesenthal in his Jewish Documentation Centre in Vienna.
People visiting The Jewish Way exhibition are staying there for a surprisingly long while. It is really very difficult to leave that uneasy celebration of Memory.
Professor Mika Vuola, Finland.