Jewish artists from Chagall to Rothko used the image of the crucifixion as a reminder of Jesus' origins as a Jew and to relate the suffering of Jews of the Holocaust to what had become a standard Christian symbol. In this sculpture, the impression of a tormented body suggests emptiness and loss as much as anguish and despair. Saul Baizerman's socialist leanings led him to work in hammered copper and bronze, the process of which suggests empathy with the working class and perhaps the forced labor of the concentration camps.