Most of Melita’s family perished in the Holocaust. She began to exhibit her work in 1991, when her family was once again destroyed by war, this time in ex-Yugoslavia. To survive reality, she created another world for herself where the story of her family could continue. Her paintings represent chapters of the story of her life. The painting that describes it best is ‘The Dybbuk” inspired by the play “Between the Two Worlds” by S. Ansky, which tells a story of fated love. Dybbuk, a wandering soul of a dead person who could enter and possess the body of a living person, was a popular figure in Jewish folklore in Central and Eastern Europe.
Melita Kraus was born in a non-observant Jewish family in Croatia in 1954. Most of her family perished in the Holocaust. While she was growing up, her family didn’t practice any Jewish rituals, nor was there any talk about them. Today, she uses her art as a way of honoring her family and all the victims of the Holocaust.
A haunting dystopia some readers have called “the new 1984.” In a society where memory is rewritten and resistance is pre-approved, freedom isn’t restricted; it’s redefined. As systems evolve beyond human control and choice becomes a simulation, true defiance means refusing the script, even when the system already knows you will.
A new book of poems by Nina Kossman. “When the mythological and personal meet, something transforms for this reader…” -Ilya Kaminsky
This isn’t self-help. It’s not a parody either. It’s something stranger and smarter: a satirical, uncategorizable book about belief, leadership, algorithmic power, and the performance of divinity in modern life.
