"We have a Lord who helps and saves us from death," my father wrote that on the back of a photo.

The driving force between my current artistic development and my early rejection of art was my father, Siegfried Gottfried Ludewig. His work as a goldsmith in the Association of Fine Artists and his work as a gilder for the Green Vault in Dresden are not documented anywhere.

You can't Google my father. His life's work has been erased. The State Art Collections in Dresden are sitting on the issue and remaining silent. The 16 copper-embossed and gilded Saxon provincial coats of arms, Polish state coats of arms, and initial shields of the Wettin Electors of King Augustus the Strong of Saxony and Poland hang in Dresden's Hall of Pretiosensaal. When my father could no longer gild due to mercury poisoning resulting from the gilding, he trained master silversmith Stefan Greif, who subsequently electroplated the other 16 copper coats of arms. My father died a horrific death, and the entire family still suffers from the resulting damage.

This all made me hostile to art.

Why is Stefan Greif silent? Why is David Menzhausen silent? Why are the Dresden State Art Collections silent? What will happen if I publish the correspondence between Joachim Menzhausen and my father between 1969 and 1982 ?

Was it the mercury gilding, which was already illegal in the GDR? Is it the precious stones that my father removed from the jewelry on Joachim Menzhausen's orders?

My family, the grandchildren, and I want answers.