This painting is of my muse, my husband’s late grandmother, Elena. It is dedicated to her and to all women of all religions and backgrounds like her who survived the brutalities of WWII, and all atrocities before and since, both because of war or in the home. I have simply painted her turning away from the past, from the dark, from negativity, and looking forward to the future, to the light, to positivity.
It is because of Elena, that I studied history at University of South Wales.

On the 22nd of August 1939 Adolf Hitler authorised the killing “without pity or mercy all men, women and children of Polish descent or language. Only in this way can we obtain the living space we need.” The Polish nation was the first European populace to experience the Holocaust when Germany invaded Poland on the 1st of September 1939. At this time Elena, a Roman Catholic, was a very able young woman well on her way to studying medicine and becoming a doctor; however, due to the German tactical policy of targeting and exterminating the Polish elite and intelligentsia, Elena’s application to Warsaw University, along with all her papers were lost. The persecution of the Polish intellectuals was an effort to deny the population of its power of resistance not only did the Germans deny the young adults of Poland access to university, but they also denied children access to secondary schools.
During WWII Elena and her brother Jurek became members of the Polish resistance. Sadly, Jurek was caught by the Germans and Elena was forced to watch him be shot in the street in front of her. Elena was eventually captured as a political prisoner in August 1944, during the start of the Warsaw Rising. Elena was initially detained in Pawiak prison before being moved to Ravensbrück concentration camp then she was moved on to Sachsenhausen concentration camp prior to her liberation in 1945.
Following the end of WWII, in a liberation centre Elena met and married another prisoner of War, and they eventually made their way to the UK as migrant refugees. They ended up settling in south Wales, where they both became teachers, Elena at the Catholic school in Abergavenny and her husband became the Associate Director of music at Monmouth Boys School. They spent the rest of their lives here, raising their family.