Esther Nisenthal Krinitz

Esther Nisenthal Krinitz (1927 – 30 March 2001) was a Polish Jewish artist.

Early life Esther Nisenthal (married name Krinitz) was born into a Jewish family in 1927 in a small hamlet, Mniszek in Poland, the second in a family of 5 children and the oldest girl. Her father was Hersh, her mother was Rachel; her older brother, Ruven; and younger sisters were Mania, Chana and Leah, Their story would be that they were from the northern part of Poland, where their family, like others in the region, had lost its farm to a German family. With their digging tools in sacks across their shoulders, they would ask for work in harvesting potatoes.

Return to Poland, illness and death In June 1999, exactly 50 years after she left Europe, Esther returned to Mniszek to see what remained. at the age of 74.

Embroidered art Esther Nisenthal Krinitz had begun the first of her series of 36 panels

The next subjects for her art were two dreams she had had while hiding in Grabówka. Each dream—one in which her grandfather had appeared to her and another in which her mother came for her—had left singular vivid images in Esther's memory, and translating them into pictures was an important accomplishment for her. Once the dream sequence was completed, Esther decided to begin a narrative series that grew increasingly complex. With the addition of text, her art became illustrations of Esther's story of survival. The exhibition originals and images has toured cities and galleries / museums across America from 2002 to 2019, and was shown in Canada and Poland.

In 2011, Art and Remembrance completed a 30-minute documentary film, "Through the Eye of the Needle: The Art of Esther Nisenthal Krinitz." It has had over 100,000 viewers on social media.

Esther Krinitz has literally woven the most shameful chapter in human history into a fabric of art that is at once both beautiful and shocking. It is so important that these works can be shown to the public.' said Honourable Przemyslaw Grudzinski, a former ambassador, the Republic of Poland. On Holocaust Day 2020, the American Visionary Art Museum released a short clip of the film onto social media.