WWII German prisoners in the Soviet Union

That’s the subject of Susan Grunewald’s new book From Incarceration to Repatriation: German Prisoners of War in the Soviet Union (2024) that she presented virtually at a recent "Long View" session at the Kennan Institute.

The sessions are forums dedicated to books and ideas about the former Soviet Union.

Dr. Michael Kimmage, the Kennan Center director, and Maria Lipman, visiting scholar, interviewed Dr. Grunewald of Southern New Hampshire and Louisiana State universities, posing some questions asked by the virtual audience.

The conversation explored the millions of German prisoners of war held in the Soviet Union, before and after WWII, seven years longer than held by any other Allied nation. 

Dr. Grunewald said she stumbled onto the subject accidentally when she was in Russia teaching English and a woman complimented a building which, she said, was constructed "precisely" by Germans.

What was this about?

Dr. Grunewald started her exploration which led her over the years to Russian state archives, German sources, memoirs, East and West German newspapers, encyclopedias, and, aided by the geographic information system, maps of labor camps and prisons. She found more than 4,000 of the 4,300 prisoner labor sites.  

Although Russia’s state military archives has thousands of documents, Dr. Grunewald said Russia lacks a central repository and accounting of its prisoners of war.

The German POWs were not supposed to mix with Russians but they did, due to the country’s dire need for workers and manufacturers’ pleas for assistance, the main reason the Germans were held captive for so long.

The prisoners drove trucks and gave rides to waiting bus passengers, especially young girls, the free Russian population accepting that not all German POWS were bad. Some of them stayed in dorms.

In extreme weather conditions, they worked outside, often clothed inadequately, and according to memoirs Dr. Grunewald found, they sometimes lacked adequate nutrition.

However, they were fed propaganda, educational programs and carefully selected Russian films. 

Did they believe what they saw and heard?  

The May 1945 figure for German prisoners in the Soviet Union numbers three million, but December’s figure of the same year and later, January 1956 both recorded 1.5 million POWs.  

What happened?  

The numbers do not make sense and Dr. Grunewald noted their huge discrepancy and debate, information which was still classified in 2016 and 2017 when she was doing her research.

Altogether, seven million Germans were held in captivity by the British, French, and the Americans.

When the soldiers returned home from Russia after the war, those returning to West Germany received compensation, but those returning to East Germany got none.  A few Germans decided to stay. 

Although she is unable to access Russia’s archives now, German archives have been helpful, she said.

The Kennan Institute, formerly associated with the Wilson Center, is now independent with a committed mission “to improving American understanding of Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia, the South Caucasus, and the surrounding region through research and exchange.”

Go to the Kennan’s website for more sessions. 

Shakespeare's 'On Beckett' is Oh Beckett!

 Bill Irwin is Samuel Beckett in Shakespeare Theatre Company's On Beckett/ by Craig Schwartz

 Bill Irwin is a Tony Award winning actor, director, writer, choreographer, star of stage and screen, and devotee of Irish author Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) whom Irwin portrays in a solo performance at Shakespeare Theatre Company. 

Last Saturday night's crowd at On Beckett enthusiastically welcomed Irwin's Beckett show, Beckett's large photograph making up a big chunk of the initial black backdrop. 

For all those who know something and more about Beckett and for those who want to know more, it is an evening of pleasure.

Beckett was born in Dublin, Ireland, the winner of Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969, a modernist writer of all things bleak, sad, tragic, and absurd who wrote in English and French and is best known for End Game (1957) and Waiting for Godot (1952) from which Irwin read excerpts and periodically presented brief biographical Beckett sketches. 

"We have time to grow old.  The air is full of our cries.  But habit is a great deadener." 

Irwin also quoted from Beckett's Texts for Nothing about old men searching for new meaning in new places.

"Yes, I was my father and I was my son. I asked myself questions and answered as best I could....the same old story I knew by heart and couldn't believe, or we walked to each in his world, the hands forgotten in each other."

Irwin, who bears a striking resemblance to his subject, created the show which he complements with clown antics (he studied at Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College) and bigger pants, jackets and suspenders he puts on.

In keeping with the minimalist Beckett content, the stage (by Charlie Corcoran) was the same with bench and podium (from which sprouted an unruly microphone) which became a screen for Irwin's ascents and descents. (You have to be there.) 

James Joyce was Beckett's mentor and friend who often wore a bow tie (he gave one to Beckett), a cravat Irwin wore, too, with, at times, a bowler hat, and a cane.  

Irwin, 75, is the first performing artist to be awarded a five-year MacArthur Fellowship. 

The performance lasted about 90 minutes and seemed much shorter. 

Michael Gottlieb's excellent positioning of  spotlights and lighting from above and behind the audience cast Irwin's shadow on the backdrop. 

Other creative team members: Martha Hally, costumes; M. Florian Staab, sound; Lisa McGinn and Natalie Hratko, stage management.

Special performances include:

Open captioning: 2 p.m., Feb. 21; 12 p.m., Mar. 4; and 7:30 p.m., Mar. 5

Audio description:  2 p.m., Feb 28

Young Prose Night (under 35): 7:30 p.m., Feb. 20

What: On Beckett

When: Now through March 15. 2026 

Where: Klein Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, 450 7th Street, N.W.

Tickets: Start at $35

Box office:  202-547- 1122

The show is an Irish Repertory Theatre production made in association with Octopus Theatricals.

(Of note:  Google no longer permits links to Wikipedia.) 

patricialesli@gmail.com

Sayonara to Philadelphia's super surrealist show

The Philadelphia Museum of Art/photo by Patricia Leslie

It's not too late to get on the train and head north to Philadelphia to celebrate Surrealism and admire the tremendous creativity of 70 artists and 200 works in Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100 closing Presidents' Day, this Monday. 

Giorgio de Chirico's Portrait of Guillaume Apollinaire, 1914, Apollinaire, a poet and critic and the first to describe the artist as an unusual breed. Apollinaire coined the term "Surrealist" to describe his own absurdist stage play.

Kay Sage, Unicorns Came Down to the Sea, 1948

Dorothea Tanning, Birthday, 1948. Not a very happy one, was it? Here Ms. Tanning presents herself in 1700s sorceress's apparel with tiny humans on her skirt. Doors open to the wonderful avenues of Surrealism. According to the label copy, Max Ernst suggested the title, Birthday. 

Enrico Donati, The Evil Eye, 1947, made of painted plaster, acrylic sheet, copper wire, mirrors, and glass, positioned high above other works at the museum's exhibition. 

From Art and Antiques:  Evil Eye (1947), a gruesome orb embedded in flesh, mounted on a glossy black box with circular mirrors and trailing a tuft of electrical wires. With these objects, which could be props in a horror movie, Donati strayed, rather effectively, into more conventionally Surrealist territory—ironically at the very moment when Surrealism was on the verge of coming to an end as an organized movement. 

Donati is sometimes called "the last Surrealist." 

A side glance at Donati's Evil Eye

Philadelphia's Museum of Art (old name, now newly reestablished new old name) is the only place in the U.S. to see the huge show, after its successful world tour and landings in Brussels, Hamburg, Paris, and Madrid.

Remedios Varo, Icon, 1945. The ascending staircase symbolizes the link between the heavens and Earth, according to the label, with a circle at the top reflecting the teachings of the Armenian philosopher and mystic George Gurdjieff.

Remedios Varo, Celestial Pablum, 1958

Jacques Herold, The Great Transparent One, 1971 (replica of 1947 original) made from bronze, mirror and quartz crystal. In 2005 it sold at Christie's for 22,200 euros or $26,418 in today's dollars.

Victor Brauner, Self-Portrait, 1931. Be careful of what you wish for...or think about. Mr. Brauner drew this seven years before he lost an eye in an accident.  He said all his paintings  had an autobiographical link.

Jackson Pollock, Male and Female, 1943-43. The label copy says it brings the two opposites together.

A "content warning" at the entrance to this gallery says it contains sexually explicit images which some may want to skip...and where some may want to linger/photo by Patricia Leslie

Wolfgang Paalen, Articulated Cloud, 2023 replica of 1937 original, consisting of an umbrella covered in sponges, the opposite functions of each. In Mexico City in 1940, Mr. Paalen and Andre Breton organized the first surrealists' exhibition, "International Exhibition of Surrealism," where Mr. Paalen became friends with Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Two years later Mr. Paalen broke with the movement in a "biting" farewell.

Wolfgang Paalen, The Exact Time, 1939-40 consisting of glass eyes, oil, and feathers on wood

What is Surrealism?  

There are about as many definitions as works presented here, but it is not observable realism, but dreams (some artists drawing on Freud's findings), absurdity, the unreal, mental happenings and turmoil.  

Nothing happy about it.  Rather like our world today. (Dreams aren't always negative.)

Frida Kahlo, My Grandparents, My Parents, and I, 1936. Andre Breton thought Ms. Kahlo's work was "an authentic expression of surreality" rooted in Mexico's history and culture. He was first introduced to Ms. Kahlo on a 1938 trip he took to Mexico to meet Leon Trotsky.

In the galleries at the Philadelphia Museum of Art/photo by Patricia Leslie

Rene Magritte, The Secret Double, 1927 seems to show that behind every face is mystery and turmoil. For this work, the "experts" say the artist's mother's death may have impacted him.

Salvador Dali, The First Days of Spring, 1929.  Dali's works are easy to spot, like this one when he moved to Paris from Catalonia and "officially" joined the Surrealists in 1929, according to the label. Amidst a vast wasteland Dali portrays Sigmund Freud's description of childhood sexual initiation and guilt.

Max Ernst, The Forest, 1923. The National Galleries of Scotland says Ernst painted a series of forests to capture his feelings of awe and terror at age three when first seeing one in person one near Cologne. 

In the galleries at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  Here is Giorgio de Chirico's The Soothsayer's Recompense, 1913 with an abandoned Ariadne and Theseus's departing train from the island of Naxos, a work Wikipedia says inspired Philip Guston to become a painter/photo by Patricia Leslie

The original surrealist art developed after World War I responding to the horrible effects of war. The movement lasted about 40 years and originally centered in Paris before it spread around the globe.

Many consider Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450 - 1516) and Italian Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593) to be surrealist harbingers.  

What: Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100

When: Thursday - Monday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.; open until 8:45 p.m., Friday. 

Where: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia 19130

How much:  Adults, $35; Seniors, $33; Students, $19

For more information:  215-763-8100

patricialesli@gmail.com

Barnes's spectacular Rousseau ends Feb. 22

 

Portrait of a Woman in a Landscape, 1899, Barnes Foundation.  This may be Rousseau's mother who died the next year.  The church spire is like that found in the artist's hometown, Laval. The forget-me-not flowers symbolize remembrances.

It's not too late to jump on board a train and head up to Philadelphia  to the Barnes Foundation for Henri Rousseau:  A Painter’s Secrets which leaves the station on February 22, 2026.

It's the largest Rousseau exhibition in 20 years, with works from museums around the world, and it's the first time in almost 40 years that the Barnes is loaning some of its collection to another institution, the co-developer of Rousseau's Secrets, the Musee de l’Orangerie in Paris where the show travels next. 

The memorable Snake Charmer, 1907, Musée d'Orsay.  How many snakes can you find?

Unpleasant Surprise, 1899-1901, Barnes Foundation. The label copy asks:  Is she a victim, or does she rise against the violence?  ('Splain!)

Eve in the Earthly Paradise, 1906-07, on permanent loan from the Stiftung Hamburger Kunstsammlungen

The Musee de l’Orangerie has the world's second largest Rousseau collection (11) following the Barnes with the largest (18). 

For the first time in 100 years, the show reunites some Rousseaus and brings together several which have never been together: The Sleeping Gypsy (1897), Unpleasant Surprise (1899–1901), and The Snake Charmer (1907). 

Because he created the Snake Charmer after The Sleeping Gypsy was sold, Rousseau never got to see them together.

Tropical Landscape - An American Indian Struggling with a Gorilla, 1910, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Tropical Forest with Monkeys, 1910, National Gallery of Art, Washington

Fight between a Tiger and a Buffalo, 1908, Cleveland Museum of Art. Rousseau said a client commissioned Fight for 5,000 francs but Rousseau could only collect 200 francs from an art dealer.

In the galleries in January/photo by Patricia Leslie

Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) was a self-taught French post-impressionist who didn’t take up painting until he was in his early 40s. Wikipedia calls him a “self-taught genius” although many, during the artist's lifetime, thought his work was amateurish and child-like.  (Tell that to the buyer who paid $43.5 million for Rousseau's 1910 Les Flamants in 2023.)

His only teacher, Rousseau said, was nature.

He never left France to observe and draw the jungle scenes and wild animals he anthropomorphized with human faces for he found inspiration at a greenhouse, at Paris's Natural History Museum, in children’s books and listening to French soldiers talk about their experiences in Mexico.  

The Pink Candle, 1908, Phillips Collection

The Family, 1892-1900, Barnes Foundation. Rousseau still owned this when he died.  He grew up in a wine-making region of France where his sister, daughter, and granddaughter still lived when he died. The label points to all the consternations in the painting:  unhappy people, especially the women, perhaps because, with the exception of the seated woman, none of the ladies drink!

Child with a Doll, 1892, Musée de l'Orangerie. The doll seems almost as big as a giant baby bottle! Note the little girl's feet rooted in the grass. The label copy notes the extreme care the artist devoted to this work. Rousseau and his wife had six children, five of whom died early.   

The Wedding, 1905, Musée de l'Orangerie, which Rousseau was unable to sell, even for 300 francs.

In the galleries in January/photo by Patricia Leslie

Rousseau's The Hungry Lion Throws Itself on the Antelope was exhibited at the first showing of The Fauves in 1905 where his painting may have influenced the name of the group. ("Fauve" in French means "wild animal" or beast.) 

In 1908 Picasso hosted a memorable banquet in Rousseau's honor, a party still referenced decades later and attended by Guillaume Apollinaire, Juan Gris, and Gertrude Stein, among others.

Rousseau tried to make a living as an artist but did not succeed, documented by his reuse of canvases and alterations to please  clients.

In the galleries in January which overflow with almost 60 Rousseaus/photo by Patricia Leslie

War, 1894, Musee d'Orsay. Perhaps Rousseau was reflecting on the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 and the Paris Commune of 1871, when he lived in Paris.

Among the many recognizable names Rousseau influenced were and are Picasso, the Surrealists (where a huge exhibition on Surrealism runs through Feb. 16 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art), the poet Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, singer-songwriter, Joni Mitchell, and ... Meta.

In his younger years, Rousseau worked for the government as a tax collector which he left at age 49 to pursue art fulltime. 

Rousseau was curated by Christopher Green, professor emeritus at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, and Nancy Ireson, deputy director for collections and exhibitions at the Barnes, with the support of Juliette Degennes, curator at the Musée de l’Orangerie.

An eight-page color synopsis of Rousseau and his works is available at no charge at the exhibition and, in the shop, a hardcover, 336 page catalogue sells for $65.

Blake Gopnik's biography of Dr. Barnes, the Maverick's Museum is also sold in the shop, an unforgettable book which drew me back to the museum.  (You see what books can do!  And I took three friends.)

What do Rousseau's paintings mean?  It's up to you.

They can serve as springboards to imagination and evolve into personal stories.  Each contains sources for more than one novel! Let your imagination run wild...like Rousseau's!

At the Barnes/photo by Patricia Leslie

What:  Henri Rousseau:  A Painter's Secrets

When:  Thursday - Monday, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., through Feb. 22, 2026

Where:  The Barnes Foundation, 2025 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, ph. 215-278-7000

How much: Two-day tickets are $30 (adults) and $28 (seniors). Students are $5 and members receive free admission.

patricialesli@gmail.com

Book review: 'Stan and Gus,' highly recommended

Some things never change like testosterone levels or old men chasing young girls, like Stanford White (1853-1906) did which led to his murder, like Jeffrey Epstein did which led to his ...

White's murder comes at the end of Stan and Gus: Art, Ardor, and the Friendship That Built The Gilded Age, a thoroughly engrossing tale by Henry Wiencek about White and Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907) two notable designers, sculptors, architects who helped set the tone for the Gilded Age, the Belle Époque.

This page turner unfolds the two associates' "secret lives," and same-sex relationships, which is not the main story here but the book is about friendship, associations, and big projects and what it took to finish them.

To protect his friend from exasperated and frustrated clients impatient for their delayed sculptures, White acted as Saint-Gaudens's agent, making excuses and constantly asking for patience from weary patrons, many waiting years for completions.

Throughout life, Saint-Gaudens accepted more work and commissions than he could perform, many at the same time, like the 40 he worked on while also designing the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial at Boston Common which took him almost 14 years (1884–1897) to finish.

Before the father of Augusta Homer ("Gussie") would agree to marriage between his daughter and Saint-Gaudens, Mr. Homer had to be convinced that the sculptor had a large future commission laying in the wings (which he proved), yet in his two-volume memoir, edited by their son, Homer Saint-Gaudens, Saint-Gaudens devoted only five lines to Gussie. 

They were married for almost 60 years, until his death, although "Gus" spent much of that time with his mistress, using her face for many sculptures, including the famed Diana.

During Boston's single digit winter temperatures of 1876-77, Saint-Gaudens and White collaborated with others on Trinity Church. 

Gus was often moody and depressed, constantly worried about debt.  

Wiencek writes it is difficult to know why Gus accepted the Clovis Adams sculpture, Clovis Adams, the suicide victim and wife of Henry Adams, but Henry Adams acted on the advice of a friend and walked in to Gus's shop to obtain a commitment, which, to Adams' long anger, was years in the coming.

Gus believed (p. 187) that “sculpture lasts forever" and "he wanted perfection,” often turning away from projects for long periods, trying to find the something they lacked. 

White's son Lawrence, also an architect, believed architecture "hemmed in his father’s natural talents” since his father really wanted to be a painter (pp. 80-81). 

After seeing Renaissance painting in Europe, White remarked (p. 81) that “architecture seems but poor stuff compared with things like these.” 

Like cheaters today, White paid hush money (p. 124) to keep his exploits out of the press. 

Most of the major works discussed in the book are pictured which sent me scurrying to Wikipedia to find the missing pieces. Without index and notes, the book runs 262 "little” pages and is a "fast read."  

I am lucky to live near the Shaw and Adams's memorials to see them again and again in person, whether at Rock Creek Cemetery or the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the latter two which hold casts models of  Shaw and Adams. 

Stan and Gus is a New Yorker "Best Book of the Year" which lives up to the inclusion. Because of its complexity and dark colors, the cover will not win any prizes, but the book will make a great movie! 

patricialesli@gmail.com

  

Anti-ICE, Anti-Trump at Tysons, VA

A demonstrator today at the Anti-ICE/Anti-Trump rally/By Patricia Leslie, Jan. 10, 2026 at Tysons, VA in honor of Renee Nicole Good 

At Tysons today, all four corners were covered by demonstrators at Westpark and Route 7/By Patricia Leslie, Jan. 10, 2026 at Tysons, VA in honor of Renee Nicole Good 

Along Route 7 just beyond the intersection with Westpark, they stood in the rain/By Patricia Leslie, Jan. 10, 2026 at Tysons, VA in honor of Renee Nicole Good 

By Patricia Leslie, Jan. 10, 2026 at Tysons, VA in honor of Renee Nicole Good 

By Patricia Leslie, Jan. 10, 2026 at Tysons, VA in honor of Renee Nicole Good 

So do I!  Thank you, Grandmother for being there today/By Patricia Leslie, Jan. 10, 2026 at Tysons, VA in honor of Renee Nicole Good 

The people stood in the rain to convey the message to melt ICE and stop Trump and his unconstitutional practices/By Patricia Leslie, Jan. 10, 2026 at Tysons, VA in honor of Renee Nicole Good 

Based on an unscientific survey, 95.5% of passing drivers blew their horns in support of the demonstrators while 100% of passing truck drivers sounded their support/By Patricia Leslie, Jan. 10, 2026 at Tysons, VA in honor of Renee Nicole Good 

She made a sign out of last night's dinner box, she said/By Patricia Leslie, Jan. 10, 2026 at Tysons, VA in honor of Renee Nicole Good 

"Yes, I did," she beamed!  Bravo!  She had a sign!/By Patricia Leslie, Jan. 10, 2026 at Tysons, VA in honor of Renee Nicole Good 

By Patricia Leslie, Jan. 10, 2026 at Tysons, VA in honor of Renee Nicole Good 

These moms brought their toddlers to help broadcast the message:  Stop ICE!/By Patricia Leslie, Jan. 10, 2026 at Tysons, VA in honor of Renee Nicole Good 

By Patricia Leslie, Jan. 10, 2026 at Tysons, VA in honor of Renee Nicole Good 

If you think this sign looks like it came from a "No Kings" rally, you'd be right, said the maker and carrier/By Patricia Leslie, Jan. 10, 2026 at Tysons, VA in honor of Renee Nicole Good 

This woof-woof carries the right message:  Love Your Neighbor - Doggonit/By Patricia Leslie, Jan. 10, 2026 at Tysons, VA in honor of Renee Nicole Good 

Renee Nicole Good did not die in vain at the hands of ICE.  

George Floyd did not die vain only a mile from where Ms. Goodman was murdered. 

They both inspired citizens to take to the streets and carry messages that vicious, violent behavior by law enforcement will not be tolerated like the Trump administration tolerates and encourages. 

As much as Trump tries to install Gestapo practices in the United States and copy North Korea, China, and Russia, the American people will resist and perhaps, soon, Republicans will resist, too.

patricialesli@gmail.com