International Holocaust Remembrance Day: Q-and-A with Ilie Wacs

When artist and former iconic coat designer Ilie Wacs began work with his sister on their memoir "An Uncommon Journey," he rediscovered a suitcase stuffed with the family’s identity papers. The contents inspired Wacs to create “A Gathering Storm: The Vienna Papers, 1938,” a collection of paintings and collages, which debuted at the Pamela Williams Gallery in Amagansett, New York.

Deriving its imagery from stamps, seals, passports, script, and symbols of authority, the work focuses on the documentation required for Jews that began with Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), a wave of state-sponsored anti-Jewish violence in Nazi-controlled areas on Nov. 9-10, 1938.

Today the family’s papers that inspired the art collection are part of the U.S. Holocaust Museum's permanent archives. Join Wacs and his sister, Deborah Strobin, for a special evening of art and history that includes first-hand accounts through the eyes of Wacs as a teen growing up in Vienna, the family’s escape to Shanghai, and their ongoing search to find out what happened to the local Nazi SS officer who surprisingly saved their lives.