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Painted from life last night.

Thank you, Daniel.

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Painted from life in Sketchbook Pro.

Thank you, Aditi.

This afternoon I painted this portrait of Ken Colvin as he sat for me in his home in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Ken was in the first medical group to liberate six concentration and labor camps in Germany and Austria in during four months in 1945.

See the videos in which he tells his story:
www.tellingstories.org/liberators/kcolvin/index.html

This portrait is my way of honoring Ken for his lifetime of deep and continuous contributions to humanity.

As I painted him, he told me that he has been speaking to young people in schools about the Holocaust for fifty years. He told me the following -- my transcription is approximate here, since I didn't have paper and pen to write it down, nor an audio recorder -- so I drew/wrote it in his portrait as quickly as he said it. He said: "I make each person promise me that when they hear a racist joke, they will say "STOP! I don't want to hear any discrimination. That kind of talk started a war that killed millions and millions of people"

Thank you, Ken, for sitting for me today.

Saying "Thank You" is not enough to honor your lifetime of making things better in so many ways.

More recently, Ken spoke to an audience about his experiences in San Mateo, California on February 6, 2012.

Here is his talk, posted with his permission:

soundcloud.com/dnsf/ken-colvin-liberator-speaks

David Newman
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David Newman
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