Understanding the Holocaust through Art

Two types of Holocaust Art: (a)Paintings done in the camps such as at Theresienstadt It is rare to find paintings from other camps still in existence. (b) Paintings done by Survivors after their liberation

Theresienstadt (Terezin) Theresienstadt was suppose to be a safe place. Some Jews even paid to enter the camp. The Nazis made this a “model camp” to deceive Red Cross authorities in 1944: Green grass, gardens and flowers, children performing opera, and a monument to honor dead Jews.

15,000 children passed through Terezin/100 survived. Jews were suppose to get 10 kronen per month to buy things with, according to the Red Cross. Kronen were fake money in the camp. The most amount of people in Terezin at one time was 75,000. Children and adults were held until they could be transported to either Treblinka or Auschwitz extermination camps. Many elite were placed there—for awhile. Terezin had a rich cultural life with writers, musicians, artists, playwrights, schools, lectures, and concerts.

Terezin Children’s Art:

Terezin had enough musicians for two orchestras, …but not enough food for the elderly, the weak, or the sick. Approximately 33,000 died while the others were transported to and killed at the death camps.

“The Story of Karl Stojka” His brother Ossi, Z5793, died of typhus at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Ossi was six years old, had little to eat—mostly turnips, and one day he was sick enough to go to the infirmary. He received no medical assistance nor drugs and, thus, died. This was not considered a crime because he was only a child. Karl Stojka was deported from the family home in Vienna, Austria, painted pictures of Auschwitz-Birkenau after he was liberated. Karl was 12 when arrested, his name in the camps was Z 5742 and he was registered with the Eugenic and Criminal Biological Research Unit because he was a Karl survived because he was made a waiter in the Nazi kitchen. At one point he was transported to Buchenwald and was later to be returned to Auschwitz. His uncle said that Karl was really 14, a dwarf, and was renumbered ASR 74,706 meaning “antisocial Reich” or a German. When the Nazis retreated, he was sent on the death march to Flossenburg and then to Dachau. He was liberated by the U. S. 3 rd Army on 24 April 1945, shortly before his 14 th birthday. He returned with his family to Austria. Karl’s father was sentenced in 1942 to Mauthausen where he died. News of the death (from a heart attack) reached the family along with a small carton of bones and ashes. The father was 32 and had been beaten to death.

Karl Stojka at 12 and after liberation

Paintings by Stojka

Conclusion 1.Teachers will be given Nazi symbols to color. 2.Karl Stojka’s art will be analyzed for a. Symbolic colors b. Symbolism c. Death camp drawings d. Colored pictures will be given since this PowerPoint does not do them justice. The Stojka family were Roma (a more respectable name than “Gypsies”). It is disrespectful for a person to “gyp” someone because of the term’s ethnic meaning.

Roma (Gypsies) In the camps, Gypsies were forced to wear black triangular patches which classified them as "asocial," or green triangles which identified them as “professional criminals.” They were subjected to medical experiments before they were exterminated. At Sachsenhausen, they were subjected to special experiments that were supposed to prove scientifically that their blood was different from German blood. Most of the Roma, however, were gassed at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Estimates place Roma deaths between 500,000 and 600,000. In percentage, the Roma lost as many, if not more, of their people as the Jews. Today there are approximately 5 million Jews in the world with 22,000 in the United States.