Theresienstadt Ghetto: Propaganda, Paintings, and Protest
A case study analysis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47611/jsrhs.v10i3.1541Keywords:
Holocaust, Holocaust art, Theresienstadt Ghetto, Leo Haas, Pavel Fantl, Helga Weissova, Bedrich Fritta, Propoganda, Protest artAbstract
Throughout history, art has been used to express, emote, and empathize. It has provided a lens to understand history beyond figures and statistics, through the eyes of the people. The aim of this research study was to conduct a case study analysis of an art movement that emerged from the Theresienstadt Ghetto as a protest movement against the endeavor by the Nazis to use the Jewish inmates and their work as a tool of propaganda during the Holocaust. This paper consists of two parts. First, a detailed discussion of the environment of Theresienstadt was presented to show its evolution from the Nazis’ deceptive intent to put forth the illusion that it was a haven for Jewish people to the deterioration of living conditions and the audacious birth of an artistic hub upon the initiative of the Jewish inmates. Second, an in-depth analysis of four key works of art created in Theresienstadt, namely Transport Arrival by Leo Haas, a sketch by Helga Weissova, The Song is Over by Pavel Fantl, and Film and Reality by Bedrich Fritta, showcased the extraordinary courageous spirit of the artists in optimizing the meager resources they had to fight against their oppressors.
Downloads
References or Bibliography
Adler, H. G., Loewenhaar-Blauweiss, A., & Adler, J. (2017). Theresienstadt, 1941-1945 the Face of a Coerced Community. Cambridge University Press.
Berkley, G. E. (1993). Hitler's Gift: The Story of Theresienstadt. Branden Books.
Brenner-Wonschick, H. (2009). The Girls of Room 28: Friendship, Hope, and Survival in Theresienstadt. Schocken Books.
Brush, B. L. (2004). Nursing Care and Context in Theresienstadt. Western Journal of Nursing Research, 860–71.
Damjanović, D. (2016). The Hatzinger Family of Builders – from Székesfehérvár, through Osijek, Lviv, and Zadar to Vienna. Acta Historiae Artium, 167.
Laveleye, V. (1941). “Radio Belgique.” BBC European Service.
Dworzecki, M. (1989). The International Red Cross and Its Policy Vis-a-Vis the Jews in Ghettos and Concentration Camps in Nazi-Occupied Europe. The Nazi Holocaust. Part 8: Bystanders to the Holocaust.
Fischel, J., & Mazal Holocaust Collection (1998). The Holocaust. Greenwood Press.
Goodman, N., & Meyers M.B. (2012). The Power of Witnessing. Taylor and Francis.
Gray, D. E. (2014). Doing Research in the Real World. Sage.
Green, G. (1988). Artists of Terezin. Schocken.
Heberer, P. (2011). Children during the Holocaust. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Hilberg, R. (1985). The Destruction of the European Jews. Holmes & Meier.
Inge Auerbacher. (2020, February 20). United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/id-card/inge-auerbacher.
Karas, J. (1985). Music in Tereziín: 1941-1945. Beaufort Books.
Kraft, H.W., & Lorenz D.C. (2007). From Fin-de-Siècle to Theresienstadt: The Works and Life of the Writer Elsa
Porges-Bernstein. Peter Lang.
Lane, M. (2016, January 22). Art from the Holocaust: The Beauty and Brutality in Forbidden Works. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/23/arts/design/art-from-the-holocaust-the-beauty-and-brutality-in-forbidden-works.html.
Levy, E.V. (2013). Legacies, Lies and Lullabies: The World of a Second-Generation Holocaust Survivor. First Edition Design Publishing.
Ludmila, C. (2005). The Terezín Ghetto. Památnik Terazin.
Ludwig, M. (2000). Silenced Voices: Music in the Third Reich. Religion and the Arts, 4(1), 96–
https://doi.org/10.1163/15685290152126449.
Margry, K. (1992). Theresienstadt (1944–1945): The Nazi Propaganda Film Depicting the Concentration Camp as
Paradise. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 12(2), 145-162. https://doi.org/10.1080/01439689200260091.
Maxwell, E., & Roth, J.K. (2001). Remembering for the Future: The Holocaust in an Age of Genocide. Palgrave.
Megargee, G.P., Dean M., & Bergen, D. L. (2009) The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of
Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945. Indianapolis Indiana University Press & United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum.
Murray, H., and Byers, A. (2019). Life in the Nazi Ghettos. Enslow Publishing.
Opfermann, C. (2005). Beware of Answered Prayers: Ghetto-Concentration Camp Theresienstadt/Terezin. In E.
Sterling (Ed.), Life in the Ghettos During the Holocaust. Syracuse University Press.
Pariser, D. (2008). A Woman of Valor: Freidl Dicker-Brandeis, Art Teacher in Theresienstadt Concentration Camp. Art Education, 61(4), 6-12. Retrieved March 19, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20694738
Pasachoff, N. (1993). Great Jewish Thinkers: Their Lives and Work. Behrman House.
Patz, N. (2009, April 27). What You Need to Know about Terezín. Lexham Arts. http://www.lexhamarts.org/theater/200906/BackgroundInfo.htm.
Redlich, G., & Friedman S.S. (1992). The Terezin Diary of Gonda Redlich. University Press of Kentucky.
Rogers, T. (2016). Art from the Holocaust: The Stories behind the Images. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20160203-art-from-the-holocaust-the-stories-behind-the-images
Rossel, M. (1944). Excerpt from the Report by Maurice Rossel from the ICRC on His Visit to
Terezín in 1944. Jewish Museum in Prague.
Rothkirchen, L. (2005). The Jews of Bohemia and Moravia: Facing the Holocaust. University of Nebraska Press.
Rovit, R., & Goldfarb, A. (1999). Theatrical Performance during the Holocaust: Texts, Documents, Memoirs. Johns
Hopkins University Press.
Salamon, J (2004, September 10). Keeping Creativity Alive, Even in Hell. The New York
Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/10/arts/design/keeping-creativity-alive-even-in-hell.html.
Sandomirskaja, I., & Drubek N. (Ed.) (2016). Welcome to Panorama Theresienstadt. Apparatus Journal, 2(3). https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.17892/app.2016.0002-3.48.
Sieminski, I., Maedel, O., Mattiuzzo, V., & Mualem, E. (2009). The Theresienstadt Ghetto: A Study Guide. American
University & La Salle.
Stargardt, N. (1998). Children's Art of the Holocaust. Past & Present, 161(1), 191-235.
https://doi.org/10.1093/past/161.1.191.
Troller, N., Shatzky, J., Ives, R., & Rauch, D. (2004). Theresienstadt: Hitler’s Gift to the Jews.
University Of North Carolina Press
Troy, G. (1987, May 29). Red Cross Inspected One Concentration Camp. The New York Times.
United States Holocaust Memorial Council (1994). Days of Remembrance, April 3-10, 1994: Fifty Years Ago, Darkness Before Dawn. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (2006, December 8). Final Solution: Overview. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/final-solution-overview.
Wallach, K. (2020). Man’s Inhumanity to Man. Lulu Press.
Weniger, K. (2001). Das Große Personenlexikon des Films [The Film’s Great Encyclopedia of People]. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf.
Woolford, A. (2010). The Führer Gives the Jews a Town: Impression Management, Homo Dramaticus, and Bare Life in Theresienstadt. Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal, 6(1), 87–104. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741659010363043.
Yin, R. K. (2009). Case Study Research: Design and Methods. Sage Publications.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
Copyright (c) 2021 Navya Agarwal; Ms. Kah Ying Cho
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Copyright holder(s) granted JSR a perpetual, non-exclusive license to distriute & display this article.
