On a recent vacation my wife and I visited the Pinkas Synagogue in Prague. You are overwhelmed when you enter. Covering the walls and ceiling are the names 77,297 Jews who were among the 80,000 from Prague killed in the Holocaust. Each row is about a quarter inch on the white walls. You can’t stop your eyes from scanning the walls of lost lives. You are then led into a room that will change your understanding of evil, hatred and survival.
Enclosed is a glass case are hundreds of pictures of children’s drawings. They were created by Jewish children imprisoned at the deportation camp at Terezin. The majority of the Jews sent there were scholars, artists and musicians. Before the war, the Nazis deceived Red Cross inspectors. They gave art supplies to the inmates and encouraged them to hold concerts. They had inmates plant flowers and create a park. Once the Red Cross left, most of the inmates were sent to Auschwitz to be murdered.
Artist Friedl Dicker-Brandeis joined her husband when he was sent to the camp on December 17, 1942. The children were denied schooling. Friedl used the art supplies to encouraged the children to express their feelings and memories through art. The art ranges from hopeful colorful scenes and objects, to stark, dark pictures reflecting fear and anxiety. Friedl asked the children to sign their drawings so they would never be invisible. These were children who were robbed of their lives by the evil of hatred. My eyes filled with tears as I thought of my four granddaughters. How could a civilized community destroy their children because of their religion at birth?
Friedl and her husband lasted two years at Terezin before being sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau where she was murdered. She was 46. Her husband managed to survive the war. Five hundred-fifty of the six hundred children she taught were executed along with her. Friedl wouldn’t let the children be forgotten. She saved 4,500 drawings in two suitcases. She gave them to Raja Englanderova a teenage student of Friedl’s who was leader of what was called the Girls’ Home in the camp. Raja was somehow spared a trip t0 Auschwitz and saved the drawings. After the war, she turned the drawings over to the school director Willy Groag who brought them to the Jewish Community in Prague for the world to see. Fifteen thousand people were sent to Terezin. Fewer than 100 survived.
In 1940, Friedl wrote to a friend, “I remember thinking in school how I would grow up and would protect my students from unpleasant impressions from uncertainty, from scrappy learning…to teach how to overcome difficulties.” Friedl was an outstanding art student who earned scholarships and grants. Some say Friedl would have become one of the most important artists of her time. We should remember this remarkable woman who stayed true to her belief in the value of art to express the human spirit. Friedl saved the memory of the children of Terezin for all of us to know and honor. There are thousands of stories of bravery, sacrifice and survival from the Holocaust that are unknown to many of us. It’s history that can never be forgotten just like the story of Friedl and those children.
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