LONDON.- Every year millions of people from different countries and cultures are displaced from their homes by war, famine and natural disaster. This month is Refugee Week, a UK-wide programme of arts, cultural and educational events that celebrate the positive contribution of refugees to the UK , and promote understanding about the reasons why people seek sanctuary. Refugee Week 2007 will take place from 18 to 24 June.

To mark the Refugee Week 2007 the National Gallery talked to the Polish artist Roman Halter for the June episode of the National Gallery Podcast, who has a close relationship with the National Gallery collection. Roman Halter explains how the National Gallery's pictures fused with his memories of the Holocaust to become the basis of his own, very personal, paintings.

Roman Halter was 12 when Hitler's troops invaded Poland in 1939. Sent as slave labour to Dresden , via Auschwitz , he was the only member of his family to survive the war. He arrived in Britain as a refugee shortly afterwards, but only several decades later were his memories of the holocaust to become the basis of his own, highly personal, art. In Britain , Halter became a successful architect and developed the artistic talent for which he stands in a class of his own. His paintings draw explicitly on great works from the past, and over the years he's developed a close relationship with the National Gallery collection. It was honed through visits to the National Gallery, where Renaissance images of the Crucifixion resonated with his experiences. Christ crucified came to represent the body of his brother, executed by the Nazis for a compassionate deed. The painting, Shlomo I, recalls the anguished Christ figure taken down from the cross.

Colin Wiggins, Acting Head of Education and a long-term friend, invited Roman Halter to discuss a picture in the National Gallery that means a great deal to him: Goya's portrait of Do�«Ða Isabel de Porcel. Halter’s painting Woman Wearing Mantilla was inspired by Goya’s portrait of Do�«Ða Isabel de Porcel, which reminds him of his mother.