June 2022 Portrait of the Month — Yehuda Dubner

Studio portrait of Yehuda (Yulik- right) and Israel (Srulek - left) Dubner.

Photo from the collection of: U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Jodi Dubner Gordon

Yehuda “Yulik” Dubner

One day several years ago we got a call at The Memory Project Productions from a stranger. She had found hand-drawn portraits of her uncle on our website. He had been killed as a young boy during the Holocaust. She was deeply curious about who we were and why her uncle was being honored. Then she gently pointed out that we had gotten his name wrong.  There were two brothers in the photograph (below) we’d chosen from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum for our Face-to-Face workshops. Their names were Israel and Yehuda Dubner, known at home as Srulek and Yulik. The information with the photograph didn’t specify which boy was which. We guessed wrong.  It was a daughter of Srulik–the younger, curly-headed boy who called us. He had survived; his older brother, Yulik had not.

This year, we participated in the Yom Hashoah program at the daughter’s synagogue. A few weeks early, the day school and congregants worked together making portraits in a Memory Project workshop. The portraits were on display at the Yom Hashoah commemoration.  This sensitive portrait of Yehuda “Yulik” Dubner, was made by a girl at that workshop. The circle was complete when these portraits reached the family and the congregation who never got to meet him—Yulik’s family.