Janet’s Letter

Janet’s paintings were branded “degenerate.”
She clung to her art her breath, her pulse
while the Collectors circled, closing in.

February 27, 1936 (1940?)

-Hadamar Institute

The sky was filled with dark clouds, bu then it abruptly turned to glass, cracked from side to side, and exploded, raining down on me like a storm. I was in a desert without end, a place where even the wind had forgotten my name. There was nowhere to hide. There was no one to help me. I just stood there and watched, feeling a searing pain every time the shards hit my bare skin. As the bright flashes of lightning illuminated the desert with roaring thunders, I saw a different part of me in each piece of glass lying around me. That’s when I realized that these were my dreams, my hopes, my feature and they were all broken beyond repair. I woke up in the middle of the night, screaming in fear.

“I’m shattered. There’s nothing left of me. I’m no one. I’m nothing.”

Disturbing memories of the past suddenly surged like a tide I couldn’t stop, flooding my mind, memories that were too painful to recall. I was once a promising artist. I worked tirelessly, pouring my soul into every canvas, believing that talent and dedication would be enough to build a life. My paintings were filled with color and possibilities. And then, in a single night, everything I had worked so hard for was taken from me. Hope melted away like watercolor in the rain. My life collapsed like a house of cards, and I was lost in the darkness, unable to find my way out.

Do you know that there is nothing more painful than losing everything when you think you finally have it all?

One night, they came and took everything from me, including my freedom to create and my dignity.

My only crime was my paintings.
The Nazi regime, which committed horrific atrocities and dehumanized millions, condemned my work as the product of a “degenerate mind.” They destroyed my paintings, mocked me, despised me, and branded me as a mentally sick person. They deprived me of my livelihood, my dignity, my place in the art world. All I wanted was to make a living doing what I was born to do, what I loved most: to create freely, to paint without fear. I resisted them with all my strength, but in the end, I found myself back where I started: penniless, silenced, and hopeless.

I’d lost everything I had.

I drifted through the streets like a ghost until the Collectors, caught me like a criminal and brought me to this psychiatric hospital, claiming that I was mentally disabled.

Unfortunately, sometimes life can throw you into darkest places and situations without warning. I know this better than anyone. Because I live in it. Hitler’s supporters dehumanized people and turned them into empty shells,“Nazis.” Those Nazis separated families, killed innocents or forced them to die, put them in camps and mental hospitals.

My father, my husband, even my friends all turned their backs on me, except for my mother. And, here I am, forgotten in a cramped room in a place that claims to heal the mind but destroy the spirit. I spend my days tracing the cracks in the wall as if they were lines on a canvas and imagining painting them one by one, raising my fingers like a paintbrush. They can lock my body away, but they will never cage my mind. I yearn for paint. I yearn for canvas. I yearn to give shape the storm inside me. I need to pour my feelings onto the canvas, give each them a heart to beat. Painting only thing that can keep me sane in this terrible place. But they’ve handcuffed my creativity and locked it away like a criminal. No one will ever know about me or my art. If artists can’t share their art with people, then it dies with them. Then what’s the point of being an artist if no one will ever see and appreciate your work?

Now, even painting seems like a luxury that I’ll never have. But it’s the only thing that can heal me. If I had even a single watercolor and could just draw a new world, without pain and without cruelty, perhaps I could then breathe again.

Life has completely disappointed me. My hopes and dreams of becoming a great artist one day were shattered. Now, I am lost in a fog. I can not find a way out. I have nothing, I am nothing anymore. I am stuck in darkness and despair. I don’t even have a pencil to hold on to and continue drawing. If I cannot paint, I may truly lose my sanity. Creativity is the lifeblood of artists like me who are dedicated to their art. I do not want it to die. If it dies, I will die with it, I will perish. For me, giving up painting is like giving up oxygen. I cannot imagine a life without brushes, canvas and the smell of turpentine.

I stole this pen and paper from a nurse, and I am writing to you with them. I no longer care what they do to me. I only care that my art survives and my paintings exist forever in canvases hanging on walls long after I am gone so that people can see me in them- the real me, the one they tried to erase and know that I refused to disappear. Only then will I know that I am finally free.

Janet Glassner

One of the unfortunate PRISONERS OF THE FORGOTTEN PAST