More on Helga…

I found some examples and information to go with examples of Helga’s amazing work.

1. 

From the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (ushmm.org): 

Bread on the Hearses” by Helga Weissova, a child imprisoned in Theresienstadt. Drawing with brush and watercolors. Caption with the artwork reads: “Everything was transported on old hearses—luggage, bread and elderly persons. ‘Jugendfürsorge‘ (Welfare for the Young) is written on this hearse. But coffins were transported flatbed carts.” December 1941.

Listening to a concert in the Terezin ghetto.

One of two places- Being deported from  to Terezin/ Theresienstadt or On the platform at Auschwitz: Need I say more. Most people from this ghetto died in Auschwitz, especially after the infamous/famous Red Cross visit. The old, the young, the women with children… They were sent to the gas chambers. So sad. 

Terezin was the site of the Nazi propaganda film, Terezin: A Documentary Film from the Jewish Settlement Area, that showed how “well” the Jews of Europe were doing under Hitler. The Nazis cleared out a section of the population for a Red Cross visit, gave the “prisoners” more food and clothes, put on plays, concerts, and musicals (see Brundiabar and the children of Terezin), and put on other events. After the Red Cross left and the film was made, most of the population was deported where many died at Auschwitz. 

Catching Up Part 1: Art of the Holocaust

Hello to all you readers out there. I am sorry that I have not posted in the last couple of days, but after the last week, I needed to let my brain rest and churn all that new information that I recieved. I knew some basics about the Holocaust, but wow. That is all I can say about it. I did say that I would post some of the information that I learned so let’s get started. I hope that it will enlighten some of you to the stories of the Holocaust.

Art of the Holocaust:

When I heard the lecture over the art of the Holocaust, a couple of artists stuck out to me. One was Helga Hoskova-Weissova. The other was Felix Nussbaum (I will discuss him tomorrow). Both created amazing pieces of art that captured the hope, despair, horrors, and dreams associated with living during the Holocaust.

Helga Hoskova-Weissova was born in 1929. As a young girl, she and her family were forced into the Czech ghetto of Terezin. While there, she began creating artwork capturing what she saw in the ghettos. In 1944, she and her mother were sent to Auschwitz were she continued to do her work while suffering the horrible conditions of forced labor. She survived this and a forced labor march to become one of the most celebrated artists of the Czech Republic. She was one of the 10 percent of children to survive Terezin. She did this by lying to Josef Mengele about about old she and her mother was when arriving at Auschwitz. She was recently in Atlanta, talking about her art and her story. In January of 2013, a published version of her diary will come out.  Below is some examples of her artwork. 

This was a birthday present to a friend of Helga. In it, Helga talks of their lives and their dreams of the future. It starts with the year she and her friend were both born, 1929. In 1943, they are both stuck in Terezin as prisoners of the Nazis, but they both dream of the future. They dream of walking the streets of their home, Prauge, as adults with their children in a post-war world. Sadly, Helga’s friend did not survive the war. This drawing, done by a young teenage girl is powerful in its hopes for the future, but yet heartbreaking because most of Helga’s friends and contemporaries did not make it from Terezin. Helga was an amazing artist at such a young age, and it is a great thing that she and her artwork survived to be witness to the Holocaust.

Tonight, I will post more examples of her artwork so that we can all see what she captured. I do suggest that you look up stories about the art of the victims and surviviors of the Holocaust because they are moving.