Die Uberlebenden, Kathe Kollwitz

      Kathe Kollwitz grew up in Germany during the First and Second World Wars. She was directly effected and frustrated by the corruption of the German government as a girl and brought it out through her artwork. Her piece Die Überlebenden, which means “the survivors”, shows children being swept up by a menacing figure with disproportional sized hands. Through much research, many psychologists believe that she suffered from a childhood neurological disorder, commonly called “Alice in Wonderland syndrome”, which causes migraines and sensory hallucinations (3). However, these children, while they are “survivors”, seem to be negatively effected by what they have gone through. Namely in this image, based on the date, it seems that it was World War One that affected them. There are also people in the background with blindfolds on. This represents the people’s ignorance to the power of the government and the terrible things they were doing at the time. The children look terrified, but like in Speechless their mouths are closed, showing silence. As in Speechless, there is an extraordinary lack of color, which shows bleakness and a loss of hope. These two completely different time periods and places have the same theme – silence, forced by the government, and accepted by the people. This image is directly related to the theme of silence because it shows that even when someone survives an extraordinarily scarring ordeal such as living under a seriously corrupt monarchy, it scars someone and changes the way they used to be.