This nine-episode podcast was produced by the Martin-Springer Institute by professors and students at Northern Arizona University in conjunction with an art exhibit of the same title featuring works by Parin, some of which were unearthed in a church in Cottonwood, Arizona. The story follows the life of Parin and traces the journey his works took after World War II along with the Jewish Diaspora.
Episode 1: Church in Cottonwood
We visit a church in Arizona and discover Gino Parin through his painting, Cristo (ca. 1942), now housed in the sacristy of the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Cottonwood. Born Federico Guglielmo Jehuda Pollack in Trieste in 1876, Parin was a close friend of the Springer family, some of whom moved to the United States, bringing with them a collection of the artist’s work.
Episode 2: Città: Trieste and the Rise of Italian Fascism
We travel to Gino Parin’s birthplace, Trieste, and learn more about Italian fascism. The city was a thriving Habsburg seaport in the 19th century and later the location for Benito Mussolini’s speech pronouncing Italy’s antisemitic laws in 1938.
Episode 3: Cristo (Christ)
Parin’s Cristo painting in Cottonwood takes us back to Trieste. Born Jewish, the artist converted to Catholicism when he was 21. He painted many Christian subjects throughout his career, including two studies for a large altarpiece featuring Christ at a time when Trieste was under Nazi occupation (1943–1945).
Episode 4: Citizenship
We unpack the concept of citizenship as it pertains to Parin, who renounced his Austrian nationality for Swiss citizenship. After World War I, when Trieste became part of Italy, Parin also adopted Italian citizenship. His Swiss citizenship should have protected him from being arrested by the German Gestapo, but in the end, he became a victim of the Holocaust.
Episode 5: Companions
We look at Gino Parin’s relationships with three of the women in his life: In 1898, he married Ella Auler when they were both art students in Munich. Later, and after his divorce, he met Fanny Tedeschi, who became his model and muse. After Fanny’s death, Parin met Magda Springer in 1930. Their initial mentor-student relationship blossomed into a deep friendship, and they attended the same German Catholic church in Trieste.
Episode 6: Cranio (skull)
We encounter Gino’s self-portrait in his Cristo painting, along with other hidden images that include a skull; Sigmund Freud makes a short appearance, too, and we unpack the concept of the gaze.
Episode 7: Camps – Italy
Parin was imprisoned in Italian camps during the German occupation of Italy. First are the two detention centers in Trieste, the Coroneo prison and the Risiera di San Sabba. The latter used to be an old rice factory converted into a transit camp for Jewish and political prisoners. In 1944, the Nazis added a crematorium to the Risiera—the only one in Italy’s four German camps. Later Parin was sent to Fossoli di Carpi, a camp administered jointly by the Italian Social Republic and Nazi Germany.
Episode 8: Camp: Bergen-Belsen
We explore the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen where Gino Parin died in June of 1944. The camp rapidly expanded with Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941. In 1943, the SS opened a special holding camp at Bergen-Belsen for a few thousand so-called “privileged” Jews to be exchanged for German prisoners kept by the Allies. Parin was deported to Bergen-Belsen in May of 1944 and died there on June 9.
Episode 9: Commemorate
After his death, Parin was remembered in exhibitions featuring his art, sometimes claimed as a Jewish painter, at other times praised for his Christian-themed paintings. What curators today consider to be “characteristically Parin” are his works that engage with trends in vogue in Europe in the years before and after the First World War.