THE RICHARD KARON BIOGRAPHY FOUR YEARS LATER - WHAT HAS BEEN THE RESPONSE TO HIS STORY?
One of the reasons I wanted to write the biography, of former Muskoka artist, Richard Karon, had a lot to do with my original interest in his work, which I saw close-up when I was working for Muskoka Publications in Bracebridge. Our sister publication, The Muskoka Sun, used to run full front page reproductions of art work, created by local painters, and one of those editions happened to feature a landscape by Richard Karon, with a story about his newly established art studio, near the Village of Baysville, in the Township of Lake of Bays.
I remember reading about an exhibition he was having on the property of Bigwin Inn, and the examples of his work we had access to, at the newspaper, impressed my a great deal. I have been a landscape writer in the spirit of the painter "I can never be," and his work always seemed to possess an inner story I very much appreciated. It was plain to me, Karon wasn't just trying to impress patrons with capability, and pretty pictures, but trying to create an intrigue, as to why the depiction was done in the first place. What made him choose that particular lowland, or solitary tree, laden with snow, above a near-frozen lake? What was his mood at the time, because for me, having looked at many of his art panels, some closer than others, it seems obvious it wasn't simply a matter of joyful enterprise.
There are powerfully appointed landscapes, painted through the decades of his career, comparable in style, that reflect an unspecified yet profound sadness, loneliness, isolation, and encroaching darkness, that we might associate with the creator's anticipation of an approaching storm front, rising along the horizon. And there are others that give the voyeur, a fluid, heartfelt feeling of intimate contentment, and pleasure, as if, on that day, Karon was particularly moved, and over-joyed to be representing the subject scenery, benefitting from all its emerging sensory attributes. Even being creatively influenced by the musty scent of the lowland vegetation, the murky water, and the brown acidic pine carpeting, layered over the forest floor. Yet, the artist, with unfettered desire to capture the essence of the environment, allowed the mood of the landscape, the sky, the lake, mirroring pond, or bog, he happened to be painting, to reveal its own rugged disposition and softening mood. He had no intention to impose his interests on the scene, stretching out in front. In other words, he was very careful not to embellish what was, on its own, a remarkably barren, and sullen scene, to make it something it wasn't, at that hour in the day, in whatever weather might have prevailed; within that precious integrity of a wild place. It was important to him, that his impressions were true to the experience he felt, on site, staring out at what was so perfect and vibrant, despite what human emotions might have interpreted otherwise, as feeling quite threatening, and even oppressive. Richard Karon knew well what it meant to be oppressed, but not by nature. He had lived through the occupation of Poland by the German Army, during the years of the Second World War; a time, when the only beautiful scenes he was privileged to view, were what he saw on the postcards friends and family gave him for painting practice.
He let the feeling of the locale, influence his painting, because it was the most honest way to approach the nature of the region. It's what many of his painting owners appreciate to this day. They're not just pretty pictures, with colorations that match the household or cottage drapes (or upholstery), or make a room look more spacious by vertical design. He was from the old school of art, in Europe, and wasn't about to be controlled simply, by prevailing marketability and profit, of the end product. It is true, that he most certainly would have made much more money, painting the popular scenes in Muskoka, such as on lakes Rosseau, Muskoka, and Joseph, but then he wasn't a painter who responded or even paid attention to art trends. He painted what inspired him. It was his art career, and he did what appealed to him, and thousands of patrons were happy to own one of his originals for this reason.
Since I wrote the original biography, four years ago, in part, to more acceptably handle the numerous enquiries I received each year, asking for more information about the artist's past and career accomplishments, I would say, without doubt, the biography has been both well-read, and his online archives of work, well viewed. The online video has also been actively viewed by painting owners who have been searching for information about the Muskoka artist, and his diversified art portfolio. As before the biography was published, I am still getting between five and ten serious requests for information, each year, regarding paintings these patrons possess. Only a very few are interested in valuations. Most just want to know more about this Polish / Canadian artist, who represented the landscape of East Muskoka, and the Township of Lake of Bays, so admirably well, for the few short years, he worked from his woodland studio near Baysville. Yes, I am glad the project was undertaken, and completed, and that it has served as a decent information source ever since. I couldn't have done it without the kind assistance of the Karon family, particularly Richard Jr., my pilot friend, who has kept his father's name in the public domain since his death quite a few years ago now.
I hope you enjoy the third chapter of the Richard Karon biography. Much more to come.
Young Richard Karon in Poland.
Wladyslawa Karon with Daughter
Richard Karon in Canada
Richard Karon and Fredda Karon
The Importance of Richard Karon's Polish Heritage to his Art Creations
"Throughout his trip (across Canada), he (Painter Arthur Lismer), had urged that attention to the folk arts which he felt so integral a part of the Canadian renaissance; he had also expressed over and over again his concern at the loss of the folk crafts and talents of New Canadians," wrote John A.B. McLeish, in the 1955 (second edition in1973) biography, entitled "September Gale - The Study of Arthur Lismer of the Group of Seven," by John A.B. McLeish (J.M. Dent & Sons, Canada). "Although Lismer sincerely admired the Americans, and was far too perceptive to miss the rich and growing artistic life of that great modern culture, he distrusted what he called a 'lazy melting-pot'; by this he seems to have meant the indiscriminate melting out of some of the fine folk traditions and skills in order to produce an acceptable cast of American citizens," writes John McLeish, of the Group of Seven Artist. "He spoke forcefully to the point, in Vancouver, in a passage which, through a piece of loose reporting, made it appear that he was in favor of some sort of segregation of the immigrants into separate communities - an absurdity in an otherwise excellent press account."
What Lismer meant, was that this folk heritage, brought to Canada from homelands overseas, should be thoroughly incorporated in the work they are inspired to do here, as new residents of Canada…..not art traditions destroyed because of some national imperative to perform or create to a particular standard, and common objective.
The artist noted that, "In what we call 'Canadianization' of the foreigner, we often lose a treasure. Instead of encouraging European immigrants in their artistic embroideries, metal work, stone-cutting, wood-carving, we put them to work in factories, or at best copying the designs supplied to them by shops. They should be banded into communities where their craftsmanship would be developed and stimulated……A busy country, especially where its citizens are busy with their hands, is a country of peace."
We are at somewhat of a disadvantage, studying the art work of Richard Karon, that we do not know the full extent and breadth of his painting, while in Europe, to be able to assert, with any confidence, he carried on with his characteristic work in Canada, honed in Poland, Germany, Austria and France. We suspect that in his escape from Poland, in and around 1948, that he carried few things with him, other than clothes, blankets and some food provisions, which in part, consisted of cubed sugar they ate, when there was little else to consume. It may be the case, that in his home town, in Poland, there are family members still, who own some of Karon's original work. It is possible, that as this biography is circulated in Poland, someone may come forward in the future, to provide us with an image for our archives, of a sketch or painting from the period of the German occupation, dating back to September 1939. As these art works show up, we then may be able to see the stylistic similarities and differences, between his early sketches and later, his abstracts and landscapes done in Canada. There have been some art owners, who, without actually meeting the artist, have commented, Richard Karon must have been European, despite not knowing this for sure. They claim the artist's use of color seems European in nature, which is a broad stroke, untutored assumption. It was his personal choice for expression. It was what he saw of the vistas he painted. He didn't have a European format to follow. He had an artist's eye. Again, as he didn't bring much in the way of art, when he arrived in Canada, in the early 1950's, it's assumed he started again with a clean slate, having no anchor of previous work to build upon.
Did his Polish heritage influence his painting? In some cases, this had some foundation, such as his ability to work with wood and carve. When he passed away, he left his son Richard Sahoff Karon, a beautiful wood trunk he had made by hand. He had learned these skills from his father Jan, in Poland, who was proficient carving religious icons. There is considerable evidence, scattered throughout this biography, that Richard Karon held a special place in his heart and mind, for Poland, and his family that still resided there. He loved to hear his favorite polka tunes, read about news events in Poland, (in magazines) and was fond of Polish and Jewish cuisine. He was able to talk about life in Poland, and he had a long-standing plan to return one day. This never happened. I don't know if he ever referred to himself as Polish-Canadian, or as a Polish Canadian Artist, while working in the District of Muskoka. He did refer to himself freely as a Canadian Artist.
As Lismer had noted, these cultural and historic influences, of New Canadians, was to be welcomed and encouraged, to enrich our national identity, as a proud multicultural nation.
THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN - THE HORROR OF WAR
CANADIAN ARTIST RICHARD KARON, 1928-1987
After a couple of sunny, warm weeks, in the early spring of 2012, it has become quite cold here now, for the final days of March. This morning is clear and sunny, but well below freezing, and that may damage some of the perennials now poking through the earth. I worry about the lilacs which are at least a full month advanced, from where they would normally be, as minuscule buds, at seasonally cold time of the year. Most of us however, are of the heart and weary soul, that we simply can't refrain ourselves from bestowing an unspoken thanks to a kindly nature…..for this mercy of an early warm spring. Admittedly it is nice not to be wading through new snow, or being buffeted by a blizzard that can happen in Muskoka, right up to the end of April. Oldtimers talk of this, and although I'm only fifty-six, I can remember heavy snow in late April, and the ice leaving the lakes as late as the first week of May. It is beautiful out there this morning, and the woods are beckoning. This might have been the kind of bright and cheerful morning, Richard Karon would have found perfect for sketching, near his Lake of Bays home-studio. The kind of invigorating spring morning, that would lend itself to long walks along the well trodden lakeshore paths, and the narrow foot-trails snaking down into the lowland, and widen up some far incline which affords the voyeur a panorama of the landscape below. The artist might sense this is a day for adventure and discovery. I would like to have watched Richard Karon sketch these thriving natural places, in that strange solitude of creation. It would have been a wonderful opportunity fulfilled, to then watch the artist, in his studio, apply paint to canvas, with his palette knife, and see for myself, the landscape emerge beneath the studio lamps.
I have been reading through a book, written by World War II historian, Martin Gilbert, in his landmark research, entitled "Atlas of the Holocaust," published by Michael Joseph Limited, in 1982, in a failing attempt, I'm afraid, to put myself back in the years Richard Karon, (pronounced "Karoin" in Polish) experienced the Nazi occupation of his native country. I can actually start feeling ashamed, reading through these accounts of the Holocaust, from the comfortable perspective, of my own sheltered, coddled existence, having had a safe and prosperous life from the beginning. Looking out this office window, down onto the sunlit lowland we call, The Bog, it is so difficult to comprehend how the artist dealt with his memories, while immersed in such beautiful places. How such savagery, he witnessed daily during the occupation, adversely, and permanently influenced the artist, I am studying for this biography.
It is almost impossible to measure the degrees of difference in our lives. The biographer who has enjoyed a privileged life in Canada all his life. The painter who found art, an effective escape from the brutal reality of day to day living, within the domain of the Nazi regime. I have been looking out, and wandering freely through these alluring woodlands all my life, without ever being held still, by the barrel of a gun aimed at my head. Never once having my view of these beautiful landscapes, compromised by fear, and anger. Was his appreciation of these open places, of the limitless possibilities of nature, more profound than mine? Had his incarceration given him greater appreciation, for the expansive boundaries of freedom and the unfettered sense of life's liberation? He never talked about this with his family, as such, but those who were fascinated by his landscapes, sensed of his art, that he had an inner passion for escaping what confined or confounded him. He was not politically active, but was aware of the politics of the day.
In the past twenty years I have made it a priority to read every book I can find, about the horrors faced during Nazi occupation, and the deeply etched injuries on civilization generally, inflicted by the inhumanity of the Second World War. And with this latest attempt, trying to better understand the magnitude of suffering, as so poignantly documented by Mr. Joseph. I still find myself stunned by the immensity of the challenge. To truly appreciate the fear and loathing this young man, the aspiring artist, felt every day of his life, from the moment of the invasion of Poland, September 1st, 1939. It was not lifted from his soul, even when the Nazi war machine was halted by the Allied Forces. We have no way of truly appreciating, the huge and overwhelming breadth and depth of the personal suffering he dealt with, for the rest of his life. How long does it take, to erase the memory of your mother's execution, or the many children he saw shot by Nazi soldiers…..and block-out the distant echo of the screaming he could hear, coming from inside the jammed box cars of human cargo, that passed him at trackside, day after day, for nearly six years of a young life? Could he suppress those flashbacks, when sitting out on some pinnacle of Muskoka rock, looking down at a mirroring lake, on a bright and cheerful day like this? Or was it a haunting reality of every day, that it influenced every panel he ever painted? It wasn't something he wished to talk about, and didn't read books detailing the war years. He didn't need to be reminded. From what I have learned about Mr. Karon, he wasn't retrospective about his life, unless it was something anecdotal, such as being inadvertently served carrot soup, which inspired a brief reprimand to the cook, of reasons why he despised it……that it reminded him of the near starvation, he and his family had faced, from 1939 to the end of the war. If he had been handed Mr. Gilbert's excellent book, documenting more completely those years in Occupied Poland, I suspect he would have placed it back down, plainly adverse to having someone else explain to him, what kind of suffering had been endured then…..as he recalled as a bright and intelligent young man, trying to help his family survive what for some was unsurvivable.
"Although this 'Atlas' is one of Jewish suffering, no book or atlas on any aspect of the Second World War can fail to record that in addition to the six million Jewish men, women and children who were murdered at least an equal number of non-Jews was also killed, not in the heat of battle, not by military siege, aerial bombardment or the harsh conditions of modern war, but by deliberate, planned murder," writes Martin Gilbert. "Hence, even in this 'Atlas', which traces the Jewish story, mention has frequently been made, often as an integral part of the Jewish fate, of the murder of non-Jews. These include Polish civilians killed after Poland's capitulation, the first, mostly non-Jewish victims at Auschwitz, the tens of thousands of victims of the Nazi euthanasia program, the non-Jews killed with Jews in the slave labour camps of the Sahara," and the "Poles expelled and murdered in the Zamosc Province." Richard Karon was not Jewish. His mother was executed for being associated with the Resistance. But they knew Jews, as close friends, neighbors and business people in their beautiful and historic city. The city's population was thirty percent Jewish. According to his son, "It wasn't until I was a little older that I began to understand why my father enjoyed so many traditionally Jewish foods, such as matzo crackers and potato latkes, as well as other dishes." By August 1940, 1,000 citizens had been sent to slave labour camps, but only a few survived. In 1949 Richard Karon was twelve years old. This was his world. And on that fateful day of the Nazi invasion, 180 citizens were executed, to send the message, this is how life and death would balance in the future.
When you view the paintings included in this blog, created over many decades, by Richard Karon, you will see how deeply and profoundly he immersed himself, into the scene he was depicting. I have not viewed even one of his landscapes, to this point, where I have felt, he had lacked perspective and an inner joy, at being afforded such an opportunity to express his true feelings. There are paintings I can hear, feel the deep vibration, from the rushing, powerful flow of dark water over a cataract, deep inside some misty woodland enclosure, and I am compelled to ask whether he found such scenes suited to his outlook on life. The rigors and hurt in his own life, did not appear to have adversely influenced these nature studies, from what they represented to him of beauty and spirit…..mystery and discovery. Painting owners might wonder themselves, how someone who had endured so much, could paint with such delicate, appreciative intent, to capture the essence of what he most appreciated about his surroundings. Was it his way of surviving, as it had been the case, as a young man, sketching around his city, copying the architecture on old post cards, friends and family had given the aspiring artist? One would like to believe he enjoyed the effort to paint these landscapes, as much as we have enjoyed viewing them, over these many years.
"The procession of the months is a chromatic joy," wrote Group of Seven artist, Arthur Lismer. "Spring with its fresh, quick greens, and yellow flowers; summer - hot dense foliage of blue-greens and bronze, vibrant and lighter in hue than an English summer. The fall (comes) with such an amazing pageantry of warmth and hue, from the first scarlet splash of maple in the spruce woods in early October until the last fluttering leaves of the poplars fall in late November, and the undergrowth of scarlet creeper on the purple rocks begins to mark the sombre decline of the year in December. The coming of snow gives evidence of the changing rhythm and order of color. Keen air, blue and green skies, bright sunlight make a thousand baffling qualities of color, in light and shadow on the snow." (1977, "A Border of Beauty - Arthur Lismer's Pen and Pencil," by Marjorie Lismer Bridges.)
I have just been out for a walk along the narrow, winding paths above our neighborhood wetland, here at Birch Hollow. I have been pleasantly distracted from my work, by two greedy squirrels thumping at the bird feeder, on the verandah, and this has engaged the two cats in my office window, that overlooks the lilac and raspberry garden. After being interrupted by the banging of the feeder outside, and the tapping at the window pane by cats wanting to chase these squirrels, I gave myself permission to wander outside for a bit. I can become so totally absorbed in what I'm working on, that I've been known to miss appointments, and on numerous occasions, been terribly late picking up my wife from work. These squirrels have given me good reason to pause, and enjoy what has become a beautiful and warm spring day.
I have been trying to step away from some of the other writing projects, I've been laboring on, since the first week of November. It was in January, that I met with Richard Karon Jr., and we discussed the possibility of working together, to document the life and work of his artist father. He was only seven years of age when his father died from lung cancer, after a split-up between his parents. Admittedly, he felt there was much more to his father's life and work as an artist, beyond the few paintings he'd been left, and the dog-eared scrapbooks that contained notices of Richard Karon's latest exhibitions, and published reviews from the local press, critiquing his work in and out of the studio. As I had known the work of his father, from earlier in my career with the community press, and having written some of those early reviews myself, I was quite eager to work on the project, and honored to have been asked to compose the artist's biography. For weeks now, I've wandered through the late-winter woodlands of Muskoka, the enchanting play of light and shadow, through the leafless birch, and fanning of evergreen, down on the tufts of remaining snow, the sodden-down canopy of autumn leaves, the open earth; a vista, a panorama that had also intrigued the artist. Each time I visit, I think about the scene as the artist might have framed it, according to what he felt was representative of forest and lakeland. I wondered what it would have been like to stand behind him, as he sketched a scene he liked, the sound of birds and the wash of tiny cataracts from black, snaking creeks, through the matted-over humps of marsh grasses. I wanted to know if he was influenced as much by the scene in front, the forest surrounding him, and the myriad of sounds of the spring re-awakening. I have studied his landscape panels, and have found myself daydreaming, what it was like when the subject scene was being sketched out in the open. I am easily mesmerized, I think, because I can hear the landscapes he has captured on canvas. The wind brushing through the tall pines, shaking the loose bark on the leaning birches, the flutter of leaves against themselves, on venerable old oaks, and hear the barely audible rush of water along the rapids of a shallow creek. I am at home, in the company of Richard Karon's art.
If I had a chance, to ask the artist one question today, knowing what I have uncovered this far along in his biographical research, it would be this: "How did you feel about a painting once it was complete?" When he looked at that framed landscape, hung in the soft illumination of his gallery, was it what he had anticipated it would reflect, when he had first found it a suitable scene to sketch? Satisfaction? Had the mission been successfully completed? Was it a sensation of liberation? Or was it the case, something else immediately beckoned?
After reading chapters from Martin Gilbert's book, and feeling the need for a brief hiatus, to stroll these pathways, that border above the lowland, I can only believe that his answers would have been purposely evasive. What I may have desired as confirmation, that he used art as an escape, couldn't be simply defined or identified as such, at least without his own confessional. He did not keep such a journal, where I might have found some of the answers. I did not know the man. No amount of biographical digging is going to change this. Now it's what family knew of him, during those highly productive years, that carries this biography. But then, he may have also cautioned me, in my exuberance to psychoanalyze the unwilling subject, that it is not so simple to pronounce that art and nature were the great liberating forces in his life. He might never have thought of it this way, and it is presumptuous to assess this, as the reason Richard Karon pursued a career in art. His sense of freedom was much more expansive, and horizonless, but his true and safe comforts were his family, the home he constructed in the woods near the Village of Baysville, in the Township of Lake of Bays; living with his second wife Irma, and young son, Richard Sahoff, the second name, given to him by his artist father.
As a human being, Richard Karon was soft-spoken, a gentleman, an attentive, loving father, who held great stock in family values. His son noted that "My mother mentioned that my father had told her once, that you should raise your children, treat your children in such a way so that they always want to return home, to be close to their parents and family. He was kind to many people who have offered corroborating stories about meeting the artist, and finding him amicable and very polite. He was honest and hard working, and made every effort to provide for his family. But he, like many professional artists, had moments of withdrawal, moodiness, impatience and habits that family, friends and business associates recognized as difficult, and in some cases anti-social. It can be noted with accuracy, that Richard Karon Sr. enjoyed "a relaxing drink." "I don't know if I would say that he drank too much; he did like to have a few, but was never a drunk or an alcoholic, to the best of my memory or my mother's," according to Richard Karon Jr. He smoked an excessive number of cigarettes in a day, that eventually contributed to his destiny with cancer, and was by personal accounts, a controlling, chauvinist, who was greatly influenced by the seeds of jealousy. He had an obsessive nature, didn't want his wife to work, have friends, strong relationships with family, or have a social life that didn't involve him. It ultimately led to the break-up of their marriage, but those close to him, believe his character was honed early in life, by the brutal realities of a compromised life in his native Poland. While some might argue that the Nazi atrocities that he witnessed didn't make him a chauvinist, or superimpose upon him, his jealous nature, it did afflict him with what he never really understood.
If he had lived to this time in history, when so much has been revealed about the powerful and deep grasp of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, he may himself, have understood some of his excesses and fears, he had simply learned to live with…..while others, close to him, could not. When Richard Karon, passed away in March 1987, the knowledge of P.S.T.D. was still being broadened, and understood, in ongoing studies of the troubled lives faced by Vietnam Veterans, still, many years following the war, trying to salvage their lives at home. To think that Richard Karon, in the middle of these horrors unfolding, almost daily, wasn't affected in this way, is to deny just how traumatizing it was for all citizens then, watching the executions of family, friends and neighbors, as a matter of public routine. Some, like the young Karon, found the strength and resolve to defy the occupiers, and while it nearly cost him his life, he found it an intimately better philosophy, to fight for survival, than to confess fear, surrender, or feel himself conquered. His sisters and father, survived the occupation, but their mother had been shot for her undermining of authority. Millions perished in a most brutal, inhumane way. Yet the young Karon, found a way to cope with tragedy and fear. He worked. When he wasn't attempting to improve his art form, he would do practically anything, included risking his life frequently, to help his family survive. He cut hair. He found ways to secure provisions, and once, when got caught, with a loaf of bread he had stolen, was nearly shot in the head by a Nazi soldier. He was given a warning. Most were killed on the spot. It didn't stop him from stealing bread. He just became more adept at doing so, and securing anything else that would ease the suffering they, like so many others, endured during those dreadful years.
"On September 1939, the German army invaded Poland, advancing across a land where Jews had lived for over 800 years," records historian, Martin Gilbert. "Rapid though the German advance was, the Polish forces fought with skill and bravery at many points in a series of fierce battles. During the fighting, more than sixty thousand Polish soldiers were killed, of whom some 6,000 were Jews. In addition 3,000 Jewish civilians were among those killed during the bombing of Warsaw." He adds that, "Thousands of Jews and thousands of non-Jews, were killed during these early days of German rule."
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Born into a loving family of some privilege
On May 19, 1928 Richard Karon, was born, in the architecturally historic City of Czestochowa, Poland, (situated 124 miles southwest of Warsaw) to proud parents, Jan and Wladyslawa Karon (nee Jadczyk); the "Karon" surname, in Polish, would have been pronounced as "Karoin." He was the youngest of four children, having three sisters. His father had the qualifications to teach but he chose not to, instead working part-time as an artisan, crafting crosses and other religious icons, as a baker in their small family-run business, and as a hat-maker of some acclaim for both male and female customers, including unspecified custom work on regimental hats for the military. Young Richard would pick up many skills from his father, as he became a competent woodworker, in later life, making many of the custom frames for his paintings. He had worked in bakeries to make ends meet, and while working in France, had actually burned off his eyebrows being too close to the large commercial ovens. He had done a stint as a hat-maker after his eventual emigration to Canada. Wladyslawa, a well versed and politically active woman, who was allegedly very strict with her son, ran a well organized but loving home, and although there is some contradiction about living conditions, and family financial affairs, it would appear the family was well off, and may have employed a nanny to look after the youngest child.
Following the invasion by the Nazis, in September 1939, Wladyslawa was suspected of being linked to the Polish Resistance, and sent to a concentration camp which could have been Auschwitz, where she was executed with other political prisoners. There are conflicting recollections of this period, that the child had also been sent to a camp with his mother, and had been close enough to her, to have witnessed a Nazi guard kill her. We have been unable to corroborate this information, to this point. According to the artist's son, who heard the story many years ago, there is a version that suggests, the young man was told his mother had been executed, as hearsay, while he was cutting someone's hair, which he did proficiently to help raise money for the family. It does seem unlikely that the young Karon, (at eleven or twelves years of age) would have been returned to his community, after being at Auschwitz. It is more likely the case, he witnessed his mother being arrested, and forcibly hauled away by Nazi guards. There has been no date established as to when this might have occurred, but is assumed to have been early in the occupation, as dissidents, teachers, academics and those with political reputations were disposed of, by sudden executions in the city, in concentration camps, or death, the result of merciless treatment in slave labor camps. It might be the case, Wladyslawa was one of the 180 citizens of Czestochowa, killed on the first day of Occupation, September 3rd, 1939. The next day, September 4th, was known as "Bloody Monday," after the execution of 150 to 300 Jews by the Nazis.
Even before the invasion by the Germans in September 1939, there had been a prevailing anti-Semitic sentiment in Europe, and although it was most pronounced in Germany, the influences preceded the invasion. The Karon family, of the Catholic faith, probably would have experienced this growing hostility toward the thousands of Jews in their community, at the time, when of 28,500 residents, an estimated 30 percent were of the Jewish faith.
"After the German conquest of Poland, more than 1,000 Poles were taken from nearby psychiatric clinics to a wood outside of the Polish village of Piasnica Wielki, where they were shot. In October 1940, 290 Jews, old people, cripples, and the mentally ill from the Old Age Home in Kalisz, were put in a lorry to be taken to the town of 'Padernice.' No such town existed. Just outside of Kalisz, in the woods at Winiary, all 290 were gassed inside the lorry by exhaust fumes, and buried in the woods," wrote historian, Martin Gilbert, in his "Atlas of the Holocaust." One might imagine the young artist, and the Karon family, hearing the news about the increasing atrocities happening all around them, wondering how to escape the carnage as close as their immediate neighborhood. His mother, Wladyslawa, if her involvement in the Resistance Movement was true, the Germans would have had every reason to watch the family closely.
For an eleven year old, highly intelligent young man, who had come from a stable environment, and a good family home, it would have been unfathomable, to understand all that was going on around him. At a time in life, when it is impossible to truly appreciate the meaning of "death," the artist was thrust violently into the reality, that his family was in imminent danger of meeting this same horror, face to face. When Wladyslawa was arrested, because of suspicions raised by others, that she was part of the Resistance, it was probably assumed by his father Jan, that they would all die with her as a result. When she was executed on nothing more than suspicion, Jan Karon must have been petrified with fear, they would assume the family was equally involved in undermining Nazi authority. It didn't occur, but they certainly knew their actions and movements were being monitored. There were collaborators. Snitchers. There were those to trust, and those who would have turned in their own family members, to save themselves. When the younger Karon, made the decision to steal a loaf of bread, to feed his family, he must have also appreciated, from what was going on in their own neighborhood, that he could have been shot on sight. No trial. No necessity of explanation. His father would not have been able to do anything more than watch his only son die on the roadway by gunshot to the head. This is how stark and dangerous it was every day. Many were fatally shot, or beaten to death for crimes much smaller than this. The bread was taken by the soldier, who held the boy frozen at gun-point, warning him loudly that if it was to happen again, he would die as a result. There is evidence, however, the budding artist, would take many more chances during those years, up to and including his eventual escape from Poland years later, in defiance of increasing communist protocols…..and a fierce passion to find a better way of life.
During this time of unspeakable horrors, with both his country and Europe in the damning throes of war, Richard Karon worked away at his art, when not trying to earn money, cutting hair for neighborhood residents. He kept a small number of postcards the family had been sent, and those he could secure off neighbors, and he sketched with a pencil, those scenes and buildings photographed on the correspondence. He had classroom instructors, and others with artistic talent, who helped him refine his drawings, which he pursued continually, possibly as a means of distraction from the tragic events unfolding. It is known, that he would set up his chair, near their home, and adjacent to the train tracks, and many times, he had the tragic opportunity to witness the frequent, jammed freight cars of polish prisoners, and Jews, being transported to either the Warsaw ghetto, or to slave labour, or death camps. He admitted to friends, over his lifetime, how horrible it was to hear the screaming and cries for help; the requests for food and water, made of the clusters of curious onlookers, who stood along those rail lines, watching history in the making. In 1942, at the age of 14, he became an adult. He had seen and witnessed too much tragedy, to dwell in the innocence of childhood any longer. From the age of eleven, the Nazis had created a hardened, resilient, resourceful young man, who was quite capable of taking care of himself, and helping his family survive. It must have been so difficult for him, later in life, to have looked upon his own son, and his family's comfortable circumstances in Canada, and thought about how his mother and father had prayed to God, that they might survive just one more day, with the sound of gunfire echoing through the tortuous hours. How angry he must have been, to have lost those years of nurturing and security, because it was all, as if a glass pane, precariously placed, such that even the air itself, might have shattered it to pieces. He may have wanted to scream along with those Jewish prisoners, crowded into the locked freight cars, passing day and night, because as those crowds of witnesses talked, and shared the knowledge they had picked up on the streets…..it was known, the place they were being taken by rail, had no exit for the living.
Did he have flashbacks to his native Poland, when walking in the forest with his son, at their home / studio in Muskoka, thinking about the children who had been forcibly separated from their parents, as he had been from his own mother? Could he get the images out of his head, having watched in silence, as Nazi soldiers ran after, and then shot, children fleeing confinement? How could he not think of this, or have flashbacks, as he had never dealt with those years, other than, like many other survivors, having locked the memories away, refusing to deal with them. But it wasn't at his discretion, and during biographical research, it was noted by his friends, colleagues and family, that he was habitually moody, and could become angry quickly, by circumstance, retaliating over what most felt were small and insignificant issues. When on his own, at the studio, one day, friends nearby invited him over for supper. He took it that the neighbor couple believed he was incapable of looking after himself. "I can cook you know," he responded, and rejected the invitation.
His moods were unpredictable and could change suddenly, seemingly without provocation, that only a very few knew how to navigate successfully. His idiosyncrasies and unspecified depression, would ultimately destroy several marriages, one of them being common-law. Karon told his second wife, Irma, that there had been a problem with alcoholism that created serious tension in his first marriage. Not only was he a mood-driven artist, with all the frustrations a painter encounters of repeated trial and error, it was obvious to those close friends, and his second wife Irma, that whatever haunted him, was too deeply seeded, too profoundly rooted in his soul, to resolve, without his own willingness to seek help. He never admitted this, or that he needed assistance, as he had always dealt with the rigors of survival on his own. He saw himself, rightly, as a survivor. One might suppose he assumed that how he won-out over oppression, in Poland, and earned his freedom through courageous escapes, numerous times, that nothing on a domestic level, would or could defeat him. His conviction that he was a life-survivor had its flaws. He couldn't oppress his family, as his wife wouldn't tolerate it, and he could not suppress the cancer in his lungs. Art as life, life as art, not everything could be neatly framed for convenient viewing. Yet anyone looking back upon the circumstances of his early days, as a young man in Poland, might forgive him for having a jaded view of Christian values, and fairness in life. After a lengthy hiatus from the church, it is known that in the final tumultuous years, having lost his marriage, and custody of his son, Richard Jr., and knowing he had a mortal illness, the artist did return to his faith, in the final years of his life, and following his death, was buried in a Catholic Cemetery in Richmond Hill.
"In the Volhynia over 87,000 Jews were murdered in August 1942. As German units came to kill them, as many as 15,000 managed to escape. But less than 1,000 of the escapees, who included men, women and children, were able to survive nearly two years of intense hunger, severe winter cold, sickness, and repeated German and Ukrainian attack. Some of the men later joined the small Soviet partisan units which were later parachuted into the Volhynia," notes Martin Gilbert. "Between May and December 1942 more than 140,000 Volhynia Jews were murdered. Some, who had been given refuge in Polish homes, were murdered together with their Polish protectors in the spring of 1943, when of 300,000 Poles in the Volhynia, 40,000 were murdered by Ukranian 'bandits'. In many villages, Poles and Jews fought together against the common foe." It was news received throughout the occupation. Of this there was no escape. There is evidence however, the artist as a young man, mounted many daring travels during this period, and immediately after the war, crossing half-frozen rivers, and snow-laden countryside, to find out for himself what was going on in his country, slipping into Germany and Russia on occasions, with a number of equally courageous friends, including at least one German-born young lady. He knew how to evade detection, and he was highly skilled at escaping his oppressors when he felt the need for even temporary liberation. It was too early in his young life, to know what living in Canada would represent of freedom desired.
"Throughout Europe, the traveller to this day comes across monuments and gravestones to the victims. Stones mark the mass graves of individuals of whom nothing will ever be known; not their names, their ages, their birthplace, nor indeed their total number." (Martin Gilbert, "Atlas of the Holocaust," 1982, Michael Joseph Limited, London). If you would like a copy of this book, please consult the dealer collective, of the Advanced Book Exchange, through their online directory. You will be able to type in the author's name and book title, to find what and where copies are currently available.
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