The misery of Terezin concentration camp in Czechoslovakia–Nazi propagandists called it a “Jewish resort”–has been brought vividly to life here by an exhibition of 95 drawings and paintings executed clandestinely by the inmates between 1941 and 1945. Fifty-one of the works on display at the New School Art Center are by children and 44 are by adult prisoners. The exhibit is on loan from the Jewish State Museum in Prague.
Terezin was set up by the Nazis as a so-called “model camp.” In fact it was a way-station to the gas chambers of Auschwitz for 88,000 Jews and a grave for 33,000 more. Of 15,000 Jewish children incarcerated there, only 100 survived.
It was to provide a visual record for the future to give lie to Nazi propaganda, that the camp inmates gave each other art lessons, painted and drew behind closed doors at night. They hid their work in the walls during the day. They faced torture and probable death if they were caught. After the camp was liberated in 1945, the one surviving art teacher gave the drawings to the Jewish State Museum.
The adults’ art depicts the grim scenes of arrival at the camp, registration and food lines. Most of the scenes done by the children show youngsters at play, families seated around a Passover table or patients tended by a smiling nurse.
The display was brought to the New School Art Center through the offices of the late Morris Fox, member of the American Jewish Congress Commission on Jewish Affairs, who saw them in Prague.
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