The creative process is a fascinating journey, and so was the creation of this work. At some point I caught myself humming the same tune over and over again during the work — Eli, Eli. A poem by Hannah Szenesh that became a famous Israeli song for Jewish Holocaust remembrance. I even integrated a few lines of the poem into the painting. That’s how the painting got its title. Not a “Walk to Caesaria” (as the poem is titled) but my personal “Walk to Goerlitz”. I wasn’t sure if I am going a little too far astray with it as Szenesh was a Hungarian Jew, and not really connected to Goerlitz — but it all made sense to me regardless.

When I traveled to Goerlitz in November 2022 (actually, I was there on November 7, the date Hannah was executed by the Nazis) to hand the painting over to my client, I also visited the newly restored and reopened Synagogue (that is the center of the work). Inside the large, gorgeous Kuppelsaal was a temporary exhibition portraying Jewish women. And there she was: Hannah Szenesh, her portrait, Eli Eli, and her story hanging in the Goerlitz Shul. The circle closed.