Not everyone would think of Kristallnacht as a setting for a love story.
Kristallnacht—or "The Night of Broken Glass"—took place on November 9, 1938. Jewish homes, hospitals, and stores were attacked throughout Germany, Austria, and what is now the Czech Republic. At least 7,000 Jewish businesses were targeted, 30,000 Jewish men arrested and sent to concentration camps. Hundreds died. But the intention was psychological as well, to strike fear into the souls of anti-Nazis. A year later, Germany would attack Poland, beginning World War II.
In Dean Goldberg's multimedia installation "Kristallnacht," a photograph shows two (unnamed) lovers dancing at a small nightclub in Berlin. He is a Nazi soldier; she is Jewish. He wears a swastika on his arm; a yellow Star of David is sewn on her dress. He knows that the next day will be the Night of Broken Glass. After that, it will be impossible to see his Semitic girlfriend. Wall text reveals that the woman is destined to die in a concentration camp.
Eleven larger-than-life-size photographs illustrate the story, which Goldberg sees as stills from an imaginary play. Finding artifacts for this narrative became an obsession for the artist, leading him to scour memorabilia websites. Several of these objects appear in the show, including a burnt baby carriage and a menorah. A recreation of a German child's bedroom features a 1930s baby doll wrapped in an authentic Nazi blanket.
The woman in the photos is artist Erica Hauser, who painted the propaganda poster on the nightclub wall. The placard shows a blonde, handsome, square-jawed man proudly brandishing a Nazi flag. His outfit slightly resembles a Boy Scout uniform. Beside him are the words "Der Deutsche Student." This poster also appears in the exhibition.
Goldberg prefers to use nonactors, to give a more realistic feel to his work. "I didn't want it to look like a polished movie," he explains.
After graduating from the Hunter College film school in 1977, Goldberg got a job with David Sawyer, a pioneering political consultant. He worked as a film editor on more than 50 national campaigns, including Ted Kennedy's 1980 presidential bid—a baptism by fire in the crucible of American politics. In the `90s, Goldberg wrote and directed shows for "Hard Copy," "A Current Affair," and other TV news programs. He shot "Kristallnacht" at Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh, where he was a professor, in 2018.
This is the third in a series of projects Goldberg calls "Framing History." The first evoked a year in his childhood, 1961, and the second tells the story of William Burroughs, the writer, killing his wife, Joan Vollmer, in a tragic accident at a party in Mexico City. "Kristallnacht" is the first of the projects to be exhibited in a gallery.
Goldberg's interests are not purely historical, however. A video in the show begins with images of Kristallnacht and culminates in video of the January 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. The artist is asking: How do masses of normally rational, courteous people go collectively insane? "I always thought that somebody like Hitler would be real smart, but that's not the case," Goldberg says of Donald Trump. "We have a thug that's trying to become our first dictator."
He pauses. "It's not national, but it's my one chance to shine a light."
Dr. Werner Steger, the endowed chair of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Dutchess Community College, journalist Rosemary Armao, and Goldberg will take part in a panel discussion at the opening on November 8 at 7pm.
