YOU WILL LIVE IN US FOREVER! 

 

Dina Babbitt survived imprisonment at Auschwitz through her own sheer strength, her impressive courage, and the fact that she could paint.  Without her consent or knowledge, these paintings were used by the extremely repugnant camp physician, Dr. Josef Mengele,  as part of his theories of racial superiority.  She traded the those paintings for her life and that of her mom, also a prisoner.  Since learning sometime in 1973 that the paintings survived intact, she has been fighting a losing battle to have them returned to her.  Against international agreements on property restoration, international law, and common sense, they are now considered the property of the Auschwitz Museum by Museum officials, who refuse to return them despite acknowledging her authorship. 

 

Dina’s story has recently been the focus of journalists, but more visibly, an internationally known group of leading comic book artists who have created an unusual petition demanding justice in this face of this injustice.  Palo Alto High School students have been given the rights to re-publish significant parts of this amazing comic by Marvel Comics, through the efforts of the David Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and Dr. Rafael Medoff, a true friend of this project.  Students have published their own book about Dina, called Justice For Dina.  That publication and the accompanying DVD, shot by then-sophomore Wes Rapaport, are now available for purchase.