Terezin
Collection items used as inspiration
Jane's thoughts and creative responses
“I came to Auschwitz with hundreds of others to see the place of such horror. I walked along the railway lines from the entrance to Auschwitz to the end of the tracks.
For that moment in time I thought of my own granddaughter, holding my hand and asking where we were going.
As we walked along the tracks I would have shown her the flowers by the side of the railway and the trees in the distance at the end of the line.”
Jane, 2025.
Terezin -Its Place in The History of The Holocaust
There is no way to compare Terezin with Auschwitz -Birkenau or Treblinka as it had not been identified by the Nazis as a death camp, however families and the elderly who were brought to the ghetto in large numbers were then transported to the east to Auschwitz – Birkenau when it was finally operational in 1942.
The children who were brought to Terezin had already faced many humiliating experiences, they had been expelled from their schools, had yellow stars sewn on their clothes. They had lost their homes and witnessed unimaginable suffering. The children also had to deal with the upheaval of deportation, the loss of family stability and the horrors of their imprisonment. They heard their parents sorrow and fears and witnessed the cruelty of the men in uniforms. Children were forced to live apart from their parents and also lived in constant fear of transportation. Strong friendships were formed and they suffered deeply when their friends were taken away on the transport trucks. They desperately needed a purpose and direction to help them cope and survive.
Freidl Brandeis was born in Vienna, Austria in 1898. She studied at the Weimer Bauhaus School which embraced a philosophy of empathy inclusive to its students art studies. In 1938 Freidi and her husband were living in Czechoslovakia and in December 1942 they were deported ta Terezin. They were only allowed 50kllos in a suitcase which Freidl filled mainly with art supplies. The camp conditions in the ghetto were appalling but Freidl quickly realised that art could be used as a therapeutic tool to help the children deal with their feelings of uncertainty, sorrow and fear.
Freidl began teaching the children in the ghetto using collage, painting and drawing enabling then to express their emotions whilst also giving each child a sense of achievement and pride. The children were able to create spontaneous art from memories of home and family, often Including the rituals and festivals of their Jewish heritage. They also painted beautiful imaginary scenes beyond the prison gates of fields and blue skies filled with butterflies. Poems and other literary works were also written in Terezin and were poignant memories and relevant to the paintings and drawings created in the ghetto.
This collection of work, some profound and some simple, is a historical source of the conditions in the camp especially for the children. They gave moving accounts of the suffering and fear as well as faith for a better future. Only some of the children drew pictures and only some wrote poems but they all had hopes and dreams. In Terezin it is estimated there were 15,000 children and only 100 survived.
Before her transportation Freidl concealed 4,500 paintings, drawings and poems. These drawings were used in the Nuremberg trials as evidence of the horrors of Terezin. The paintings drawings and poems are the children’s legacy, not just as witnesses to their persecution as Jewish children but to mark their short lives full of courage, truth and hope.
Jane chose to focus on the individuals and artwork that was created at Terezin and was inspired to create her own artwork along with her thoughts in response.
