The journey to “The Two Regimes Collection” started in 2000 at an estate sale. What they discovered included artwork and writings that create a visual memoir of a family’s compelling journey during dark times.
Now, 26 years later, Kelly Bowen, co-owner and curator of the collection, is at a loss for words about how it has evolved and where it can go. One place it will go, in the coming days, is onto the big screen. On Wednesday, April 29, the Tallahassee Senior Center is hosting a public film screening followed by a panel discussion.
Cataloging a collection and its truths
Bowen is a woman of many hats and many degrees: Fashion Design (Associate’s), Business Administration (Associate’s), and Accounting (Bachelor’s). “Most of my career was in different things,” Bowen said. Her career took her in many different directions, and she retired as a senior accountant.
“I’ve been doing ‘Two Regimes’, wearing all kinds of hats, for the last 25 years,”Bowen said.
Bowen met Mimi Shaw, the discoverer and the other co-owner of the collection, while Bowen’s daughter was attending Maclay School and learning drama from Shaw. The two have kept in touch ever since.
“[Mimi] is the most giving person I have ever known,” Bowen said. She goes on to explain how Shaw rediscovered “Two Regimes” in the year 2000. “So many of the paintings [from the collection] were underneath this hand-built stilted house. If she had not salvaged them, none of this story would be here. None of it.”
That story Bowen refers to is the harrowing, yet inspiring, story of a mother (Teodora Verbitskaya) and daughter (Nadia Werbitzky) who survived the horrors of both Stalin’s Holodomor and Hitler’s Holocaust in Ukraine. The mother wrote the memoir, while the paintings in “The Two Regimes Collection” are original artworks by the daughter.
Together, they both document the lived experiences with Nadia’s striking emotional depth and historical accuracy in the paintings. They serve as a poignant visual testimony, conveying the trauma and resilience of survival in a way that words alone cannot. The art enriches the narrative, fostering empathy and deeper engagement with the historical realities portrayed.
Over the years, “Two Regimes” has grown to become an internationally known initiative. It provides historical education through a growing list of resources. Those include books, films, study guides, social media broadcasts, high-quality giclée reproductions of the original paintings, musical dramas, and exhibitions.
It also incorporates lesson plans for middle school, high school, and university students, as well as the general public. These materials were specifically designed to preserve history and educate current and future generations about the impacts of totalitarian regimes.
Bowen was brought in early in the process by Shaw to catalog the paintings. “And thank God I did because, as a salvaged collection, there are no names.” To put that into full perspective, that means tracking 118 paintings. “Putting a catalog number on them, the names may have changed [over the years] on occasion, but the catalog numbers never did. So that was hugely helpful back then and still is.”
There is an art to archiving important historical works. Bowen states, “We have always been sure to stay true to… this hugely historic story. It’s so approachable.” She goes on to describe the beauty of the paintings, specifically the portraits. “Their eyes tell so much.”
It’s Bowen’s background that has provided the skills to lead this archival process, as she remains dedicated to making sure “all the t’s are crossed, and i’s are dotted” with an instinctive eye for detail she’s honed throughout her various careers. “It’s all the same. And that part has helped me to do all the other things I do in ‘Two Regimes’, [in curating the collection together], and I love that creativity.”
With a hat tip to her accounting skills, Bowen remains focused on making sure things get done correctly and on time. “Anything I start, I finish.”
And this has also come into play when putting together free school lesson plans that follow all educational standards, not only in Florida but also in various other states. Bowen is aligning these lesson plans to the educational state standards, in every state in the country, providing yet another avenue to expand the collection’s impact.
Behind the scenes & beyond
Though she and Shaw are “the two faces” of the collection, Bowen is quick to state that there are many people behind the coming-together of “Two Regimes.”
She mentions how grateful they are for all sponsors and funders who brought forth so many projects together in “Two Regimes.” This includes “Teodora,” the musical based on Teodora’s memoirs, which debuted in Tallahassee in 2023, and received various funding to first create and then perform it.
“We’ve worked with Leon County Schools since 2013,” she said. “They have been absolutely fantastic… we are deeply grateful for what has been allowed for us to do.”
Bowen also mentions Lt. Colonel Michael Hall, who, in 2008, was a restoration artist who restored the paintings for free. “That does not happen…He restored 60 of our paintings, and we are very grateful.”
They also received free frames from Goodwill Industries of Big Bend, thanks to Shaw’s relationship with them. “We have had over a 150 people who have donated their time, their talent [and] their treasure to get “Two Regimes” where it is now,” Bowen states.
And where it is now includes a film and panel discussion showing at the Tallahassee Senior Center at the end of April. The film, “Two Regimes – Two Genocides,” is directed by Douglas Darlington of Winding Road Films.
“It reveals a powerful true story of a mother and daughter who survived two genocides (Holodomor and Holocaust) while living in Soviet Ukraine from 1927 to 1945,” describes Bowen.
After the film, there will be a panel discussion moderated by Dr. Michelle Gayle, Deputy Superintendent of Leon County Schools.
The panel includes Dr. David E. Gussak, Professor/Director for the Florida State University (FSU) Institute for the Arts and Art Therapy with the Imprisoned (AATI); Dr. Svitlana Jaroszynski, an adjunct professor at the FSU School of Communication; Barbara Goldstein, Executive Director at the Holocaust Education Resource Council and Advisory Board Member at the University of Florida Shorstein Center for Jewish Studies; Diane Dupuy Whitney, retired Music and Humanities educator and playwright of the musical drama “Teodora”; and Eleasha Milicevic, Department Chair of the Social Studies/History Department at Amos P. Godby High School, sponsor of the Florida Future Educators and currently teaching 11th grade U.S. History.
When asked about the importance of community members seeing the film, Bowen says that it is about awareness of the Holodomor and the Holocaust in Ukraine and fostering informed and thoughtful discussion. “We really want it to be a platform to spring forward.”
If you go
What: Film Showing of “Two Regimes – Two Genocides” followed by a panel discussion
When: Wednesday, April 29 | Pre-event music starts at 5:30 p.m., film starts at 5:45 p.m.
Where: 1400 North Monroe St., Tallahassee Senior Center Auditorium
Cost: $5
Details: tallahasseeseniorfoundation.org
Samantha Sumler is the Marketing & Communications Manager for the Council on Culture & Arts (COCA), the capital area’s umbrella agency for arts, culture & heritage (tallahasseearts.org).
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: One film, two friends and the work behind ‘Two Regimes’ collection
Reporting by Samantha Sumler, Council on Culture & Arts / Tallahassee Democrat
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