Nathan-ism

For 70 years, Nathan Hilu has been unable to stop drawing. His 90-year-old mind is flooded with memories from the days when the US military assigned him to guard top Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials, keeping them from committing suicide before their verdict was announced. Born to a Syrian Jewish family that immigrated to the States, Hilu remembers with vivid clarity the encounters that changed his life: his conversations with Albert Speer, the long kiss between Göring and his wife, the words he said to each of the accused before leading them to the gallows. These stories recur again and again in his drawings and in the texts that accompany them-rare pieces that never gained him any recognition in the art world. But what really happened back there, in Nuremberg? Could his vivid memories be deceiving him?