Creating Were The House Still Standing
A Q & A with UMA Art Professor Robert Katz
As we begin celebrating our 40th anniversary, we’re looking back at some of the major projects and achievements of each decade. I wanted to speak with Robert Katz about the 2000’s because he imagined, and then created, the iconic art installation entitled Were The House Still Standing—a tour de force that would take 4 years to complete. So integral was this undertaking to the origin of the HHRC and its founders that the building was literally designed around the emerging concept of a multimedia, immersive, moving experience. Bob, as he’s known in the HHRC community, graciously agreed to meet. What follows is his description of how it all came together.
So, how did it begin?
I was on the board of directors for about 30 years, beginning in 1990. For the first 18 years we were primarily focused on outreach and educational programming. We had a temporary office at the Maine State Library, and we often met in the living room of our Executive Director Sharon Nichols’ house in Palermo Maine. So we were not involved in maintaining a space. But after 9/11, we began discussing the possibility of creating a permanent bricks & motor home. If I remember correctly, there was an article about a national movement toward creating permanent educational resource centers, particularly in the area of human rights. That inspired us to look at this as an option. In our initial conversations, some board members felt that if we were going to move forward the center should be located in Portland. There were a few others who felt the best way would be to buy an old building downtown Augusta and renovate it for office space. But a few of us began to notice the beautiful hillside on the UMA campus (I worked there and passed it every day). I wondered, wouldn’t that be an incredible location—on a college campus in the state capitol. It sounded like a crazy idea, but we figured we’ll bring it to the UMA President and all he could do is say no. To our surprise President Charles Lyons was interested, so he brought it to the board of trustees to see if they would allow us to build a Holocaust center on the UMA campus, and they agreed with the stipulation was we would raise all of the money for construction, the university would be able to use the space and in return help maintain it. Very exciting! At that point Sharon began to make some fundraising inquiries and a very generous gift ignited the interest and enthusiasm of the HHRC community and people around the state, resulting in many donations. I believe construction began in 2005 because the opening was in 2007.
Did you already have a conception of the overall concept for the building?
Of course the discussion on the board level was: what’s going to be in the building. We knew it would include office space for the executive director and assistant, plus a kitchen and of course there would be a classroom and a resource room. The one thing that the board did not want to create a Holocaust Museum; it was going to be an educational resource center. But when we began thinking, “Well what do we have that’s really special and precious to us, it always came back to the testimony of our founders, those people who lived in Maine who witnessed the Holocaust both as survivors of the Nazi death camps and liberators who first to entered some of the camps as part of the US Army. Over the previous 12 years Sharon and others had gathered oral testimony from these people, and I believe that it was archived at Yale University, but it was cumbersome to access because the recordings were not done professionally and some of them were difficult to hear. If I remember we had over 100 hours of oral testimony, so how do students or teachers sort themselves through that volume of narrative. A lot of this discussion was brought to the educational committee to figure out. At about that time I was granted a sabbatical to travel to museums around the world and see different innovative approaches to present this sort of information. I visited places in the US, Berlin, Israel, Poland but came back uninspired. Unfortunately I remember us facing a bit of a wall; we knew we wanted to do something special but didn’t know what direction to move into.
Was there a break through of sorts?
Well it happened accidentally. I remember it was a very hot August afternoon and I took my daughter down to Lexington to bike Paul Revere’s ride. We came upon a visitor center and figured this would be a good place to cool off and get some cold water. As we entered, there was a theater-like space where we sat down. It was air conditioned so we lingered, and then all of a sudden we began hearing footsteps ... we were the only ones sitting in this space and couldn’t figure out where the footsteps were coming from. All of a sudden a door magically appeared in front of us, a life sized door, and we heard somebody behind the door walking on creaking boards with boots. It opened and there was a revolutionary era man who leaned his musket up against the wall, took off his three-pointed hat, looked at us and said “I’m going to tell you the story of Paul Revere.” We were mesmerized. As he began telling us the story, images and sounds of the events began happening three dimensionally, all around us. We were moving in our seats, and the things were happening on top of us behind us. We felt immersed in that world. Afterward i thought, wow, this is what we need in our installation.
How did you set about realizing the vision?
So we returned home and that became our vision. What I needed to do was find a team because I’m a sculptor and didn’t have the knowledge of the technology, video, etc. So the first person we got on board was Douglas Quin, who is a world renowned acoustic designer and professor at Syracuse University in the school of communication. And then we reached out to a filmmaker Matt Dibble in Oakland who had created extraordinary documentaries. Then we found a computer firm also in California that would able to build the system that would allow us to create an integrated multimedia environment. We were at the point where Sharon had raised enough money for us to move forward with building, so we put out a call for architects—and really not a lot of money for an architecture firm, so we were hoping to get maybe 30 responses from some local architects. We ended up getting over 200 submissions from architecture firms all over the world!
Why do you think there was that level of engagement and interest?
I think it was a challenge: integrating a building onto the existing campus, and the content of what this building was about ... a lot of people wanted to be involved. I remember we got over 200 submissions from architects in America, Canada, Europe, Asia and the Middle East—an astonishing number for this modest size building and budget. So we really had our job cut out for us, to sort through these submissions, which I believe are all stored in the Holocaust building right now. The storyboards we received are really fascinating to look at. We narrowed it down to three architecture firms and requested presentations. We ultimately selected the firm Shepley Bulfinch and two young architects who I don’t think had at that point had designed a building on their own; they won the competition. It was their idea to view this in a round space, which contributes so much to the beauty of the building. We envisioned it as a multipurpose room, so in addition to the installation there would be lectures and other type of events. Our engineers and design team had to work closely with the architects because it was a very complex technical structure that they needed to create: we had four separate video streams, cameras that face the three walls and ground because there’s actually a film taking place on the ground, and then sixteen portraits of the survivors who speak, so when you enter the space you feel like you’re in a room surrounded by 16 people telling you their story, and as each one speaks their faces become illuminated and the voice is coming from their portrait. We had speakers embedded in the ceiling and the walls and the floor.
It sounds like the audio was an integral part, was that hard to find or create?
We had one Holocaust survivor who said the second time we saw it he closed his eyes throughout the 75 minutes and just listen to the sound. You hear the train move across because it sets off the speakers. There’s a moment when you suddenly hear shattering glass causing people to get up out of their seat searching where this glass is breaking? Douglas spent many months traveling through Eastern Europe collecting sounds—everything from birds and crickets to the trains moving on the tracks. He collected people’s voices speaking in Hebrew, Yiddish, Dutch, Polish, and German. He worked with the United States Army who allowed him to record explosions that sounded like those that were heard in the 1940s. Then he began the laborious process of restoring and consolidating nearly 100 hours of oral testimony by Maine survivors that had been collected for a decade.
Why did it take 4 years to complete?
The first step of the project was improving the audio recording; initially we were going to take a script and hire actors to recite the stories, but the education committee discussed this quite extensively and felt we wanted to preserve their voices. So for about 3 or 4 months Doug did forensic restoration in which he took the tapes that in some cases were barely audible and he was able to clarify them so that you can hear the words very clearly. Now that almost all the survivors who participated in this project are gone, we are so grateful that you’re actually hearing their voices and not just their narrative through actors. One survivor who had passed away only gave a written testimony, so we began a search, and ironically found an actor in North Carolina who was his same age and grew up in the same village in Eastern Europe where he grew up, so he had the same accent. That’s that’s the only voice that an actor had to speak.
Historical facts vs. truths of memory, which did you emphasize?
Am important thing about this is that it’s not history, it’s storytelling. This was a very interesting discussion to have because in the US Holocaust Museum, all the information is checked and double checked by historians to make sure everything is accurate. Well some of these stories are not necessarily totally accurate because it’s from people’s memory, and we made the decision to leave that in and not search through history books but rather trust their memory of what happened 50 years ago. So there might be moments that things are not perfectly accurate, but we felt there’s so much value in understanding history through storytelling. There are moments that things are not historically accurate, but there is value to understanding history through subjective, deeply personal memory. Sometimes the speakers are in tears, and you experience their pain. We were very glad we didn’t lose that by hiring actors to recite their words. The major funder for this project was the Cohen Foundation. When they came to see it, they said their only concern was that the only people who were able to experience this were people who were coming to the center. They wished for a wider audience. We thought about that, and then Julius Ciembroniewicz stepped forward and said that he would fund the process of transferring this project onto a DVD to travel with. You don’t get the three-dimensional component to it, but you do get all of the screens and sounds. Over the years we have presented this in China twice, in Israel, Poland, Newfoundland, and most recently at the Canadian immigration museum in Halifax. So we we’ve been able to bring these stories to people who don’t have easy access to the center.
Now we need to upgrade because the technology that we used back in 2004 was cutting edge but it takes up a closet. It reminds me of the scene from the Wizard of Oz with the guy behind the curtain. They had to be installed as they were building to embed all the wiring technology. It’s very complex: 75 minutes of 16 people speaking at different times with coordinated lighting, sound and the video streams. Now we need to digitize it all. The whole thing could probably be run in something the size of your phone. We absolutely need to get the project up and running again. I think people should know that literally thousands of people have come to see this—school children and teachers from all over the state, community groups, the Fulbright scholars association, visitors to the Michael Klahr Center. The voices of our small community here in Maine have now been heard around the world. It’s been a very exciting project to work on, and very rewarding to see how many times it has been shown. Considering the fact that the core of the Michael Klahr Center was constructed to preserve and share these stories, it’s so important that new generation of people experience them too.
Thank you for sharing this story!
It’s been great talking with you about all this, and I’m so pleased that an effort is being made to revitalize it with modern technology can no longer be used. It is past time to digitize the installation and get it up and running for visitors who travel to our cultural center specifically for this experience, as thousands of people have already done. A new generation deserves the opportunity to virtually meet Maine’s Holocaust survivors, and I appreciate anyone willing to help with a donation.
Viewer Responses to Were The House Still Standing
“One overall effect is of continuity. The generations reflect what a grandfather explained to a child, that one human life is never just one being but always contains the lives of future generations. The seasonal changes also reflect the continuity and renewal of life. The water beneath the icy surface of a frozen stream continues to flow and, after the thaw, is revealed as living water in motion. We hear Yiddish, Hebrew prayers, and the sounds of nature. Again, the effect is of continuity as well as devastation. Were the House Still Standing is a tour de force, a work of art.”
David Scrase, Professor of German and Director
of the Center for Holocaust Studies, University of Vermont.
“WTHSS engages us in the witnessing act while allowing the victims’ articulation and verbalization of traumatic memories. In a compelling presentation, the adults’ voices and bodies become the vectors through which history takes shape and meaning.”
Dr. Audrey Brunetaux, Associate Professor of French Studies, Colby College.
“Katz’s film allows for unexpected reflection and stillness. Beginning with music and tranquil imagery taken from the natural world—flowing streams, forests, meadows, birds—the film only gradually and subtly introduces its subject matter of death and suffering. Moving slowly from the depiction of bucolic stillness, and only gradually to the world of human suffering and horror, WTHSS is a remarkable contribution to the history of documentary film about the Holocaust.”
Dr. Henry Schvey, Professor of Drama and Comparative Literature,
Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri.
“Professor Katz’s presentation provoked many questions and fruitful discussion of Holocaust memory and education as we contemplate the time when we will no longer have survivors and other participants as living witnesses of this event. The presentation was instrumental, through its content and spirit, in helping the conference to culminate on a perfect note.”
Dr. Stephen Gaies, Professor of English,
Chair of the Holocaust and Genocide Education Committee, University of Northern Iowa.
“Everything echoed; footsteps, the rustle of people’s clothing as they walked to their seats as well as the murmuring of voices hushed in an expectation of secrecy. Against the back wall were the words of Rabbi Yanchicker. As the film begins, a haunting melody of the flute and echo of waves and the mournful call of the loons cry out and surround me. There is a feeling of peace. As I watched from my seat in the back of the theater, my heart began to break. My hand went numb. Tears fell silently from my eyes in helpless frustration. Robert Katz has certainly put his heart and soul into the search for the truth and the rescue of a nation so many wanted to be left forgotten.”
Karen Kelly, Student
“It is powerful, elegant, respectful and moving. I think that it is a Herculean task to create a work of art that addresses history, testimony and atrocity, the past, the contemporary moment that informs and inspires… Katz’s imagery in the film underscores the idea that we must take action, in the meaningful ways available to us, or realize that our silence and inaction is acceptance of the status quo.”
Peter Precourt, Associate Professor of Art, University of Maine at Augusta.
