Associate Editor

Mindy Weisel was 14 when she discovered a drawing of a sunrise that her father had rendered in 1946, the year before she was born.

It was no pastoral landscape, however. As depicted by her father, the morning sun was peeking over barracks. A new day had dawned in Bergen-Belsen, Germany, where Weisel's father, Amram Deutsch, took pencil to paper after having survived the horrors of the Holocaust.

"This was my father's only drawing," said Weisel, 62, who was born in a displaced persons camp in Bergen-Belsen. "I think it symbolized hope."

Now an artist and author, District resident Weisel recently returned to Germany to spread the gospel of hope, reconciliation and tolerance in conjunction with a solo exhibition of her works, Full Circle-From Germany, 1947 to Germany, 2009.

The exhibition, which began Oct. 22 and is scheduled to conclude Dec. 5, is Weisel's first showing in Germany. During the last two weeks in October, she toured the country, speaking to German students, the children of Nazis and others on the twin themes of "transforming a legacy of loss" and the "survival of beauty," as part of a goodwill program sponsored by the U.S. embassy in Berlin.

"I came as an American, a Jew and an artist, but mainly as a daughter," Weisel said in an interview last week. Her late mother, Lili Deutsch, was an Auschwitz survivor, as is her 84-year-old father, who lives in Los Angeles. Lili Deutsch died 14 years ago.

Weisel had been back to Germany before, but she had avoided visiting the camps. "For me, it meant nothing but heartbreak," she explained. "I had inherited sadness and grief. But at the same time, I saw my life as a gift."

Visiting death factories such as Dachau and Bergen-Belsen was daunting, she said, "and I'm still absorbing it." At the same time, though, she said she was overwhelmed by the sense that she had properly honored her mother's memory by returning to the scene of the crime and demonstrating that "Hitler did not win."

She accomplished that not only by bearing witness to the physical remnants of the Shoah, but also by serving as an unofficial "cultural ambassador" to Germans she met on her tour, teaching them important lessons that have emerged since the Holocaust.

One lesson, she said, is that Jewish survivors are not to be defined by their victimhood only. Many had lives that were rich with meaning and beauty before Adolf Hitler, Weisel pointed out. And they continue to persevere, leading fulfilling lives that have been enriched immeasurably by the presence of children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren.

Weisel -- who has three daughters and five grandchildren -- also honored her mother's memory, she said, by teaching that hatred is a ticking time bomb.

Among the recipients of that message was a German woman by the name of Gabrielle, who confessed in a recent letter to Weisel that "I can't help feeling the burden and shame of belonging to a people of cruel and inhumane murderers." But she added: "Words are not enough to thank you from the depth of my heart for everything I encountered in and by you. I wish to you energy and courage for your work, inner peace and 'spiritual protection.' "

Weisel's Berlin exhibition of paintings and glass objects intertwines themes of destruction, hope and survival. Some of her works incorporate elements that reveal snatches of her family's story. The color blue, for example, which Weisel uses to symbolize beauty and spirituality, is reminiscent of a cobalt-blue dress her mother got when she first arrived in America in 1950 with her husband and young family.

Weisel's works have also included the identification code A3146 that the Nazis had tattooed on her father's arm.

Amram Deutsch recalled his pencil sketch of a sunrise over Bergen-Belsen that had so profoundly affected his daughter. "It was a sun that we didn't see before," he said. "It represented a new life that I was looking forward to."

Unlike his daughter, though, he's never had a desire to return to Europe. "What would I see? Bad memories," said Deutsch. "But my daughter did a heroic thing by going. She has guts. Sixty years after it happened, she's keeping it alive for future generations."