Art and the Holocaust: 9 poignant paintings by concentration camp prisoners

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The holocaust - a terrible tragedy of modern history. This year in Berlin, at the initiative of the German Historical Museum, is exhibition of paintings by prisoners of ghettos and concentration camps. Some authors managed to survive, but most died in agony in prison. Paintings remain in memory of all who were doomed to suffer. Fighting death, the artists tried their last bit to capture beauty in lyrical landscapes and to expose inhuman cruelty in caricatures. The exposition is called "Art from the Holocaust", Berlin Museum exhibits paintings from the funds of the Jerusalem national memorial Yad Vashem, created in order to perpetuate the memory of the years of terror against the Jews. A total of 100 canvases are presented, their authors are prisoners of labor and concentration camps, as well as ghettos. Most of the works tell about the joyless existence that the prisoners eked out. The fact that the paintings have survived to this day is a miracle. Friends and relatives of the prisoners took these paintings out secretly.

1. Pavel Fantl, "The song is sung"

Pavel Fantl by profession he was a doctor, was born in Prague in 1903, served time in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Thanks to the fact that one of the Czech policemen felt pity for him, the artist received materials and could paint pictures. His colored canvas "The Song is Sung" is a caricature of Hitler, the Fuhrer is depicted in the form of a clown, his guitar, which has seduced a whole people with a melody, lies on the floor broken and covered in blood. The picture is very bold, in January 1945 Fantl with his wife and son was deported to Auschwitz, where the whole family was sentenced to death. The same Czech policeman kept the picture, walled up it in the ghetto wall.

2. Felix Nussbaum, "The Refugee"

Felix Nussbaum - the most eminent artist of all whose works are presented at the exhibition. He was arrested in Belgium in 1940, but managed to escape to Brussels with his wife. The painting "The Refugee" is autobiographical, it tells about the wanderings of a Jew who cannot find peace anywhere. Initially, Felix sends the canvas to his father in Amsterdam, but his father ends up in Auschwitz in 1944, and after his murder, the canvas goes under the hammer at an auction. The Nussbaum couple did not escape death, Felix and his wife were sentenced to exile in a concentration camp in the same 1944. At the time of his death, he was only 39 years old.

3. Moritz Müller, "Roofs in Winter"

Moritz Müller - a painter not only by vocation. In Prague, he graduated from an art school, after - he founded his own auction house, which was closed by the Nazis after the invasion of Czechoslovakia. In the Theresienstadt concentration camp, he painted more than 500 canvases, the painting "Roofs in Winter" was selected for the exhibition, which captivates with an idyllic landscape and a strong contrast with reality. Several of Müller's paintings have survived in private collections, bought at auction by the widow of an Austrian officer. The artist himself ended his life in Auschwitz in 1944.

4. Nelly Tall, Girls in the Meadow

Nelly Tall - the only author, of those whose works are presented at the exhibition, who has survived to this day. Nelly was born in Lviv and painted the picture when she was eight years old. The motive for walking in a sun-drenched meadow is a projection of the desire to quickly survive the terrible time, to break free from captivity, because in reality at that time the girl and her mother were hiding from persecution in the house of one of the Christian families. In 2016, Nelly was personally present at the opening of the exhibition in Berlin.

5. Bedrich Fritta, "Back Door"

Bedrich Fritta - another prisoner of Theresienstadt. He was born in the Czech Republic in 1906 and died in Auschwitz in 1944. Together with like-minded painters, he worked a lot in prison, hiding paintings in the walls of the ghetto. His painting "The Back Door" is a metaphor for death, because there is no way to escape through the half-open gates.

6. Karl Robert Bodek and Kurt Konrad Loew, "One Spring"

The painting "One Spring" was written by a duet of painters - Karl Robert Bodek and Kurt Konrad Loew - during their stay in the Gurs concentration camp on the territory of occupied France. Despite its diminutive size, it became the center of the exhibition. A bright butterfly fluttering above the barbed wire is a symbol of liberation. The fate of the artists developed in different ways: the Austrian Kurt Lev managed to escape from the concentration camp to Switzerland, but Karl Bodek, who was born in the Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi, ended up in Auschwitz, where he was killed.

7. Leo Haas, "Arrival of transport, Terezin ghetto"

Leo Haas - talented schedule. He was employed by the Nazis to develop architectural drawings for Theresienstadt. At night, the prisoner secretly made sketches about the life of the concentration camp. In the painting "Arrival of Transport" you can see dozens of doomed people who were taken to certain death in the death camp. From the picture blows cold and tragic omen, birds of prey are circling over the formation. Despite the fact that a hopeless future awaited Haas, he nevertheless painted a sign of underground resistance in the lower left corner - V. Haas was transferred from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz, managed to survive in a concentration camp and lived until 1983.

8. Charlotte Salomon, self-portrait

Charlotte Salomon was born in Berlin and during the war she hid from the Nazis in the south of France. Together with her husband, she was arrested by the Gestapo in September 1943, exiled to Auschwitz, where she was killed. At the time of the execution, the woman was in her fifth month of pregnancy. The exhibition features three paintings by Salomon, her self-portrait very accurately conveys disturbing emotions and fear of the unknown.

Of the 140,000 prisoners who were in Auschwitz, only 20,000 managed to survive. In memory of the victims of Nazism, modern photographers found people who survived imprisonment … Their stories are a reminder to subsequent generations that in no case should such tragedies be allowed to recur.