Willy & Max: A Holocaust Story (review)

The son of an antique dealer in Antwerp, Willy longs for a playmate his own age. Max arrives one day, in the company of his father; while the two fathers consult on the purchase of a painting called The Lady, Willy and Max play hide-and-seek in the store cellar. Their quickly developed friendship ends abruptly when Nazi troops arrive in Belgium, and Max and his father, who are Jews, must escape. Years pass, and Willy, now an old man, receives a phone call from a museum; The Lady, which had been found in the ruins of a German city after the war, had been traced back to him, thanks to the small photograph of Max and Willy pasted on the back of the canvas. The museum folks eventually track down Max's family (Max survived the war but recently passed away), and Willy is reunited with the family of his old playmate. The painting functions as the unifying symbol in this fictional account of two friends separated by the ravages of war; while the concept is based on the actual work being done by organizations such as the Commission for Art Recovery (as stated in the author's note), the story suffers from contrivance, with the painting's successful return, in light of the scantiness of information about provenance, particularly incredible. While the story might be a bit of a stretch, the rich expressionistic artwork is visually remarkable. The paints are laid on thickly, so that the lines traced by the brush fibers are apparent in the paint itself; compositions of deep browns, golds, and mahoganies are touched with light and deepened by shadows, and circular brush movement adds depth and dimensionality to the paintings. Despite its implausibility, this tale of friendship offers a thoughtful look at a little-examined aspect of the Holocaust. An author's note is included.