Join us for this moving speaker. Yelena Lembersky will speak about Shoah in her grandfather's, Felix Lembersky's, art and her family's journey to bring these paintings out off Russia.

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The massacre at Babyn Yar, outside of Kiev, Ukraine, is among the thousands of mass graves still being uncovered throughout these areas. The Holocaust in the Soviet Union is one of the most barbaric moments in history with the murder of at least 2 million Soviet Jews at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators.

Artist Felix Lembersky searched for his parents in Ukraine after its liberation in 1943. When he did not find them, he began to search for clues and reconstruct their last steps on canvas. Execution: Babyn Yar paintings, ca. 1944-52, are the earliest artistic representation of the massacre. His granddaughter, Yelena Lembersky, will speak about Shoah in Felix Lembersky’s art and her family’s journey to bring these paintings out of Russia. 

Yelena Lembersky is an architect and a co-author of a new, critically acclaimed mother-and-daughter memoir, Like a Drop of Ink in a Downpour. Told from the dual points of view of Yelena and her mother Galina, the memoir describes their lives in, and ultimate escape from, the Soviet Union. It is also a coming-of-age story, heartfelt and funny, a testament to the unbreakable bond between mothers and daughters, and the healing power of art.  She was an editor and a contributing author of an art catalog, Felix Lembersky: Paintings and Drawings, a curator of exhibitions, and a regular lecturer on his art. Her writing and interviews appeared on National Public Radio, Radio Boston, and BBC, in World Literature Today, Times of Israel, The Foreword, and others. She lives with her family near Boston. 

Like a Drop of Ink in a Downpour
By Yelena and Galina Lembersky 

2022 National Jewish Book Award Finalist for Autobiography & Memoir
2022 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist
2022 Women’s National Book Association Great Group Reads Selection

— Robin Young, Here & Now