Kadavergehorsam

Thank you to the Eyerman family--artist Johanna Vogelsang’s daughter Kirsten Eyerman, her granddaughter Kyra Eyerman, and her son-in-law Edward Eyerman--for the generous donation of this work.

Also, thank you to the Hudson County Office of Cultural Affairs and Tourism for the generous grant to mount this exhibit of works by Johanna Vogelsang dealing with Social Justice.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the artist, and do not reflect the views of Hudson County Community College, the Hudson County Community College Foundation, anyone working at this college, or any local, state or government organization.

Through images and words, the artist is looking at the atrocities of World War II, as well as what has happened subsequently, to the Palestinians, to the Vietnamese, and to all of us who live in a world with thousands of nuclear bombs. One of the educational questions this work evokes is: How to do we deal with the moral consequences of this horror?

The title, Kadavergehorsam, is a German word for “blind obedience.” Several quotations were cited by the artist as important to making this artwork. According to the artist: “Kadavergehorsam is the word for the ability, trained in the SS, to walk unmoved among corpses.” The SS were a powerful, feared, Nazi paramilitary organization that served Adolph Hitler during World War II. When referring to this work, the artist also quoted psychologist Bruno Bettleheim, “The wish not to know is the cornerstone of totalitarian systems.”