Trudy Babchak
After a career as an editor and illustrator for technical manuals, Trudy Babchak enrolled in the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) to pursue her passion for figurative drawing and painting. In MICA’s graduate school Post Baccalaurate Program, she created The Light Within, which began her exploration into the relationships of women imprisoned during the Holocaust of WWII.
1998 7’x5,’ oil on canvas The Light Within
Trudy strove to understand how women deprived of common human interactions coped with crowded inhumane conditions and, yet, made lasting friendships with fellow prisoners. This question haunted her in relation to her mother’s survival in the concentration camps. Trudy’s mother, Mandzia, never talked of her confinement and survival.
2003 oil on canvas 36”x24” As We Are
Trudy’s research into the imprisoned women’s emotional health broadened into her focus on young girls who were hidden in convents and non-Jewish households to escape Nazi persecution. In her paintings, these little girls wear crisp white dresses, bows in their hair and red Mary Jane shoes. They do not know their futures and have eliminated their pasts from their souls.