1. Dr. David Gussak Asst. Professor, Art Education/Art Therapy
FSU Holocaust Institute for Educators Cynthia Edelman Art History Opening Lecture Drawing Strength: The Art of the Holocaust
Thank you for the introduction; I have to say, I was showing my bio to a friend of mine---I know, that sounds strange, showing my bio to a friend, but sometimes my friends put me thru an interview process, so I may be forced to give them my vita or something, but this particular friend said…Dave, you specialize in art therapy in prison, art therapy w/ juvenile delinquency, aggressive people, art and the holocaust---if I didn’t know you, I’d say you were quite morose…
Thankfully, she did know me, and suffice it to say, I’m not really morose, but then I started thinking, why is this interest in Holocaust art seem so morose? I don’t think that—as a matter of fact, hopefully by the end of this presentation you’ll think just the opposite as well—
Granted, the art you may see may seem horrific, seem dark and may even be quite painful to see, but nowhere else within the subject of the Holocaust is there really such hope, such optimisim, such humanism…
Some have even said to me, Dave (my friends all call me Dave—I only make my parents call me Dr. Gussak), I don’t know if I really want to go to the presentation—such images may depress me…
What draws me to this subject is that for me this is the one real place that I can turn to and see the human side—the viewing of the art removes the statistics…
Dr. David Gussak
Asst. Professor, Art Education/Art Therapy

2. When Viewing The Following Images, Consider the Following Questions…
Why did the victims create this art?
What did it accomplish?
Why the risk?
Why is it important to see this art?
How do we talk about this art?
What does it show us?

3. “…painting is designed as a mediator between us and the world around it and it is not necessarily an aesthetic operation, but a way of acquiring power and giving concrete form to our fears, hopes, and wishes.”--Picasso

4. The following images are in many locations, including the Terezin Ghetto Museum, the Auschwitz Museum and private collections
(By no means is this an exhaustive collection—there are many more art pieces that have been discovered, but space and time does not permit full exploration…)

5. The images for this presentation have been borrowed from various public domain internet sites that focus on the art of the Holocaust as well as several publications. These images will be used to provide background and discussion points forthe program session.
These sites will be listed in the last several slides.

6. Many of these artists started at Terezin but were subsequently deported to Auschwitz
Four of the most well-known artists were from the situation known as the “Terezin Painters Affair”:
Otto Ungar
Bedrich Fritta
Karel Fleishmann
Leo Haas
During the Holocaust, the Nazi regime set up a paradise ghetto in the town of Theresienstadt to show the world that they were indeed humane to their imprisoned. Visitors of the Red Cross would be escorted around this ghetto during scheduled visits, and the occupants were expected to act as if it was indeed a healthy and happy environment. In this ghetto, pursuit of the arts by its occupants was not only allowed, but also encouraged. The reality, however, was this ghetto was established as a “stage”—it was a sham. This ghetto, also known as Terezin, was a way station for many on their way to Auschwitz. The ill and ill-behaved were directly transported to their deaths, whereas those who cooperated and were seen as healthy would be detained long enough to satisfy the visitors. Once used, or used up, the occupants would be sent away. Less than 4,000 of the 87,000 occupants that passed through its gates survived; of the 15,000 children that passed through Terezin, only 150 survived.

7. Many other artists are represented here as well:
Wincenty Gawron
Franciszek Jazwiecki
Miecyslaw Koscielniak
Waldemar Nowakowski
Zofia Rozenstrauch
Aldo Carpi
Pavel Fantl
Yehuda Bacon
Helga Weissova
To name just a few…
..and of course, the children.
Please note, there were artists in many ghettos and camps; images came out of Warsaw ghetto, Dachau, Lodz, etc…however, due to the intention of the Paradise Ghetto, Terezin, “Hitler’s Gift to the Jews”, many artists were concentrated in that camp outside Prague—many of the artists, musicians, actors, etc. were concentrated in that camp—once there use was over, they were deported to Auschwitz…

8. Acceptable Art
Anti-Semitic cartoon by
Seppla (Josef Plank)
Circa 1938

9. The cover of the anti-semitic children’s book
The Poisonous Mushroom
by Ernst Hiemer (1938)
An example of Nazi approved art, specifically directed at children

10. A page from the book, focused on “How Jewish Traders Cheat”
Caption: Farming woman, have I got something special for you today. Look at this material! You can make a dress from it that will make you look like a baroness, like a countess, like a queen..."

11. Unacceptable: propaganda piece depicting Hitler as a grotesque giant
devouring people
Completed in the camp
Ink on paper

12. Many times the artists were called to create pieces to be posted around the camp to promote sanitation and health, like these two; a joke, as the camp itself was extremely unhealthy…
Caution! Mumps is Contagious!
One Louse Means Death

13. Commissioned art From the manual Falsch-Richtig.
“Marching a Column of Prisoners”
lithograph on paper

14. Artists of the ‘Terezin Painters Affair’
As an art therapist, I have been fascinated about the art that was left behind, as a means of truly revealing the horror, the hope, the anger, the hopelessness of those times. Over the years, the act of art making has been used with victims, mostly children, of traumatic and life-changing events to initiate healing and empowerment. Art is recognized as having the power to: induce a sense of peace allow a safe expression of helplessness and safely channel frustration and aggression
Art provides a sense of mastery and control for people during a time when such feelings elude them
Art can become a means to bridge people and provide them a sense of unity, belonging, and a sense of community. Nowhere is this more apparent than the art that emerged from the Holocaust.
The art allowed the residents of the Nazi’s concentration camps to form a sense of control and empowerment, when everything else was taken away. It provided a means of intellectual and emotional escape,
for many, it provided a means to concretize, make sense of, what the artists could not truly understand.
However, one of the most important purposes of this art is that it created a visual, long-living record.
The strength of the art was its permanency, even when the witnesses were not. It validated the existence of those who perished, and in a sense, created immortality in the face of extinction.

15. Otto Ungar Title: Unknown 1942-44 Ink and Wash on Paper
Auschwitz-Birkenau
The next series of images will be from the four artists captured in the notorious Artists Incident—the underground movement from Theresienstadt to draw images of what they saw around them, to keep the image alive.
These artists were:
Ungar (deceased 6 weeks after liberation)
Fleishmann (died under torture)
Fritta (died)
Haas—(survived)

16. Otto Ungar
Ghetto Walls
Watercolor on Paper
Auschwitz-Birkenau

17. Otto Ungar
Terezin in Winter
Watercolor on Paper
Auschwitz-Birkenau

18. Charcoal, wash and ink on paper
Bedrich Fritta
Barrack’s Entrance
Charcoal, wash and ink on paper
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Fritta was a pseudonym for Fritz Taussig—an interesting point here—you may change the name, but you may never change the artist…

19. Bedrick Fritta
Performance in the Ghetto—
Thereseinstadt
Ca. 1944
Wash and ink on paper
Theresienstadt

20. Bedrick Fritta
Still Life
1943
Wash and ink on paper
Theresienstadt

21. Karel Fleishmann
In the Showers
1943
wash and ink
on paper
Theresienstadt

22. Karel Fleishmann
Living Quarters in the Ghetto
1942
Watercolor and ink on paper
Theresienstadt

23. Karel Fleishmann
Women’s Quarters
1942
Watercolor and ink on paper
Theresienstadt

24. Leo Haas
Ghetto Transportation
Wash and ink on paper
Auschwitz-Birkenau

25. Leo Haas
Washing the Corpses
Wash and ink on paper
1944 (?)
Auschwitz-Birkenau

26. Leo Haas
The Safe Journey
Wash and ink on paper
1944 (?)
Auschwitz-Birkenau

27. Art as Evidence and Resistance
Further Examples of
Art as Evidence and Resistance
However, much of the art that we see fro the Holocaust, or really think about, is the art that has been used as evidence for what really happened, or in a sense, was a real form of resistance by the artists…
The concept of the art as resistance is somewhat abstract, and a concept that we’ll unpack as this presentation progresses…
Art as evidence is a bit more direct, but certainly was quite a dangerous enterprise for those that created images of what was going on around them as it really happened…
The Nazis knew that should such images get out, such sympathy for the victims, such proof of the inhumane acts, could put a bad “light” on the German government…
What I’ve always found intriguing was, this care taken to prevent the world from knowing what was really going on, reflects that the Nazis knew, at some level, despite their national pride, despite their statements that they were doing the world a favor, knew that what they were doing was just plain wrong…
Anyway, back to the issue…many art pieces, specifically those by Yehuda Bacon, who you will see towards the end of the slide show, was actually used as evidence at the Nuremberg Trials.

28. Waldemar Nowakowski
Confession,
Watercolor on cardboard
Auschwitz-Birkenau

29. Waldemar Nowakowski
Dinner
Watercolor on cardboard
Auschwitz-Birkenau

30. Waldemar Nowakowski
Unsuccessful Escape of a Czech
Watercolor on cardboard
Auschwitz-Birkenau

31. Waldemar Nowakowski
Sport
Watercolor on cardboard
Auschwitz-Birkenau

32. Zofia Rozenstrauch Death Camp Auschwitz, leaf 03, Quarantine Ca. 1945
Ink on paper
The caption reads: The newcomers to the camp were placed in so-called quarantine, actually locked up for four weeks in a stifling block, ten persons to a bunk two meters long.

33. Zofia
Rozenstrauch
Death Camp Auschwitz,
leaf 06,
Second Helping of
Soup
Ca. 1945
Ink on paper
Caption Reads: “You didn’t get enough soup? This evening you will get more”

34. Aldo Carpi
Jews in the Hospital
Ink on paper
1945
Auschwitz-Birkenau

35. Miecyslaw Koscielniak
Friends
1944
etching
Auschwitz-Birkenau

36. Miecyslaw
Koscielniak
A Friendly Favor
1943
Crayon on cardboard
Auschwitz-Birkenau

37. Miecyslaw Koscielniak
Muselman
1944
Pen and ink on cardboard
Auschwitz-Birkenau

38. Miecyslaw
Koscielniak
Roll Call at Auschwitz
1944
Ink on paper
Auschwitz-Birkenau

39. “Humor”

40. Jacques Ochs
The SS Guard ‘Ferdekopf’
1944
Mechelen Camp
Pencil on Paper
(An unflattering caricature
that would have resulted in
dangerous repercussions)

41. Jacques Ochs
The SS Guard ‘Ferdekopf’
1944
Mechelen Camp
Pencil on Paper

42. Anonymous Birthday Card, from the Gardening Kommando
1944 ink and watercolor on cardboard Auschwitz-Birkenau

43. Pavel Fantl
A Transport of Rich Jews
1942
ink and watercolor on paper Theresienstadt
Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, Art Museum, Jerusalem

44. Pavel Fantl
Metamorphosis
1944
ink and watercolor on paper Theresienstadt
Ironically, several months after he drew this cartoon, depicting the wasting away of a ghetto resident, Pavel was sent to Auschwitz where he was subsequently killed.

45. Portraiture: Keeping Them Alive

46. Franciszek Jazwiecki
Portrait of Langendam
pencil and crayon
on cardboard
Auschwitz-Birkenau

47. Franciszek Jazwiecki
Portrait of Putylin
pencil and crayon
on cardboard
Auschwitz-Birkenau

48. Franciszek Jazwiecki
Portrait of an
Unknown Prisoner,
pencil and crayon
on cardboard
Auschwitz-Birkenau

49. Wincenty Gawron
Musing About Freedom
1942
Pencil on Paper
Auschwitz-Birkenau

50. Wincenty Gawron
Portrait of a Woman
crayon on paper Auschwitz-Birkenau

51. Gela Seksztajn
Self-Portrait
Charcoal on paper
This self-portrait was completed in the Warsaw Ghetto. The year when this piece was completed was unknown. However, Gela was deported to Treblinka and was killed in 1942 at the age of 35.

52. Max van Dam
A Jewish Woman In Hiding
Year-Unknown
Charcoal on paper
Blaricum, Holland
(Max died in image completed
while in hiding)

53. Aizik-Adolphe Féder Boy with a Yellow Star Holding a Tin Can,
charcoal and pastel on gray cardboard
Art Collection - Beit Lohamei Haghetaot (Ghetto Fighters' House Museum), Israel

54. Art of the Children

55. Friedl Dicker-Brandeis (1898-1944)
Known as an art therapist by many, Friedl Dicker-Brandeis developed exercises that encouraged creativity and had a healing effect. She used yoga, meditation and rhythmic exercises to help the children relax. She encouraged them to paint self-portraits, and to sign their paintings with their own names or personal monograms at a time when they had all been issued and reduced to numbers. (
In 1944, Friedl was deported with all of her students to Auschwitz-Birkenau—All were killed.
Friedl Dicker-Brandeis ( )
The following illustrations were all done by children; some were students of Brandeis—others were not…

56. Ema Taubová
Untitled
(Born in 1930-died 1943)
Theresienstadt

57. Charlotte Buresova
Child Prisoner at a Window
Monotype—ink
Theresienstadt Ghetto
(survived until 1983)

58. Kurt Korálek
Untitled 1941
Crayon on paper
Theresienstadt Ghetto
Killed in 1944

59. Artist: Unknown
A Child’s Impression
of the Deportation of
Jews
Year: Unknown

60. Richard Nussbaum
14 years old
Witness to camps and
mass killings while in
France
Year--unknown

61. Drawing of A Child’s
Dream
“The special care children
received in the
Theresienstadt ghetto
included drawing classes.
In spite of the shortage of
basic supplies, the teachers
improvised in order to keep
the children busy.”—excerpt
from the Wiesenthal Online
Multimedia Learning
Center

62. Alfred Weisskopf
10 years old
Untitled
1942
Completed in the
Theresienstadt ghetto
(Later Alfred was deported
to Auschwitz, where he
died in 1944)

63. František Petr Jellinek
Untitled
1941
Theresienstadt
(Petr was 10 years old when he did this drawing; died 3 years later in Auschwitz)

64. Josef Novak
Untitled
Year-unknown
Age--unknown
Theresienstadt

65. Sonja Waldsteinová
Untitled
Year-unknown
Age--unknown
Theresienstadt
(Sonja was 17 years old when she died in 1943)

66. Helga Weissová (Hošková) Untitled (Dr. looking for lice on a woman)
1941
Helga was 12 years old when she drew this image
From her series “Draw What You See…”
When separated from her father, Helga in Thereisenstadt, a gifted artist even as a child, was urged by her father to “Draw what you see…” Before deported to Auschwitz, she and her uncle hid all the drawings and writings—after her release, she went back and retrieved them, and, along with supplemented images from her memory in Auschwitz, she compiled a wonderful series of daily life in the ghetto and camps…
Truly a remarkable series…

67. Helga Weissová (Hošková)
Untitled
1941
From her series “Draw What You See…”

68. Anonymous
Year-unknown
Age--unknown
On the wall of the children’s quarter of the women’s barracks in Auschwitz

69. Yehuda Bacon
The Escape–
1945
Theresienstadt
(Later Yehuda was
deported to Auschwitz,
where he survived, and
later went on to become
a well known artist)

70. Yehuda Bacon
In the Soup Line at
Mauthausen
1945
Pencil on paper
Art Collection—Beit
Lohamei Haghetaot, Israel

71. Yehuda Bacon
Memories from
Auschwitz (Figure and Wire Fences)
Pencil on paper
Completed while in
Czechoslovakia, 1946—
after he was liberated

72. Yehuda Bacon
In Memory of the Czech Transport to the Gas Chambers
1945
charcoal on paper
Yad Veshem, Jerusalem

73. Sources

74. Various available Internet Sites featuring the Art of the Holocaust
Holocaustforgotten.com
Holocaust Education Through Art

75. Learning About the Holocaust Through Art
Last Expression-Art from Auschwitz
A Teacher’s Guide To The Holocaust: The Art

76. Simon Wiesenthal Center—Multimedia Learning Center

77. “HOPE”