Jewish Affairs - South African Jewish Board of Deputies

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JEWISH AFFAIRS ROSH HASHANAH 2012SOME HOLOCAUST AND JUDAICA ARTEFACTSAND THE STORIES BEHIND THEM*Jeff FineThose who saw them, commented theanonymous SA Jewish Board of Deputiesrepresentative, would “become conscious of theimmense tragedy hidden behind every single itemwhich tells of the biggest robbery ever committedin history. Visitors will see the blood drippingfrom silver candelabra. They will see eyes openedwidely with horror; they will hear the cries ofagony of death, with which the silver will beconnected for them.”The above-mentioned representative had justcleared from Customs Jewish artefacts stolen bythe Nazis from synagogues and homes throughoutEurope. The items were distributed after the warby the Jewish Cultural Reconstruction (JCR)programme to Jewish communities round theworld.This, too, is my response when I look at theprecious articles left behind by the namelessvictims of the Holocaust, killed solely becausethey were Jewish. As a Judaica valuator andcollector, I have a keen interest in such items.This article features the stories about those thathave come into my possession.In November 2009, I gave a lecture on ‘Artand Artefacts of the Holocaust as a LearningTool’ to a group of educators who were going ona two-week course at Yad Vashem the followingmonth. Afterwards, I was invited to join them,and grabbed the opportunity with both hands. Itwould give me the opportunity to learn moreabout the Holocaust, information I could use infuture lectures. I would also be able to visit someof my contacts in Jerusalem from whom I purchaseHolocaust artefacts and antique Judaica.Little did I realize how intense this two-weekcourse would be, and that it would leave little orno time for collecting expeditions. We were onlyfree on a few evenings, but after an intensiveeight-hour day of lectures, were too tired to goexploring.On the first Wednesday, we had an amazinglecture on Theresienstadt. This was the camp thatwas housed in an 18 th Century fortress and turnedJeff Fine is a Judaica valuator and collector ofmany years standing. In addition to lecturingwidely on aspects of Judaica and the Holocaust,he has curated exhibitions in Johannesburg andCape Town, working closely with the SA JewishBoard of Deputies in researching anddocumenting their collections.into a model ghetto to deceive the outside worldinto believing that the rumours of European Jewsbeing deported to death camps were false. To itwere sent privileged Jews from Germany,Czechoslovakia, and Austria: prominent artists,writers, scientists, jurists, diplomats, musiciansand scholars. In this ghetto, there were four concertorchestras, chamber groups and jazz ensembles.For the children, there were daily classes andsports activities; art teacher Friedl Dicker-Brandeis ran drawing classes for them.Leo HaasAmong the artists was the CzechoslovakianLeo Haas, a portrait painter and lithographer whoarrived on 30 December, 1942, and was employedin the Drawing Office of the Technical Departmentunder fellow Czech artist, Bedrich Fritta. Otherwell-known artists were Karel Fleishmann, OttoUngar, and Felix Bloch. Haas drew portraits ofhis colleagues and taught painting to the children,for which he received a little food. In secret, hemade drawings documenting ghetto life – peoplesearching for food, waiting to be transported, thetransfer of internees from one place to another,the buildings, portraits of inmates, sketches of theelderly, the sick, the dying and the dead. Hisfriend Fritta drew a book as a birthday gift for hisson Thomas showing him what a normal birthdaywould be like had they not been in the ghetto, witha party, cakes, presents, and a clown, with parks,trees, flowers and birds – all things Thomas couldnot see in the ghetto. We were shown the bookTommy, which was published by Yad Vashem inHebrew in 1999, in both adult and children’sversions.Haas, Fritta and Ungar would often meet inthe evening to work on their drawings and managedto smuggle out some of their work through an artdealer, Leo Strauss. The latter used his ‘Aryan’family and close connections with the ghetto’sCzech police in the hope that this might rousepublic opinion. It was seen by the Danish RedCross, who asked to visit the ghetto. A carefullyplanned propaganda visit was prepared - buildingswere painted, shops were filled with food andJews were deported to empty the streets. Severaldays before the visit, the artists were warned by aco-worker in the technical department (a memberof the Council of Elders), that they would becalled in for interrogation. Fritta buried his pictures40
JEWISH AFFAIRS ROSH HASHANAH 2012in the ground inside a metal box, Ungar hid hispaintings in a depression in a wall and Haas hidhis works in an attic. Immediately after the RedCross had left, the Nazis began to search throughthe tools of the people in the technical department,searching for pictures. Ungar, Fritta, Haas andBloch were arrested in July 1944, accused ofdistributing atrocity propaganda to outsidecountries and, along with Strauss who had beenimprisoned several days earlier, interrogated byAdolf Eichmann. Their families were also arrested,including three-year old Thomas. In October theywere sent to Auschwitz, where Haas was forcedto produce portraits for the ‘Angel of Death’,Josef Mengele.Haas was then sent to Sachsenhausen, wherehe was put to work in the forgery commando,counterfeiting English 5, 10, 20 and 50-poundnotes. I have managed to acquire one of eachvalue as well as different signatory examples.designed movie sets for the DEFA Company andfor East German television. He exhibited hisworks in Israel, East Germany, France, Italy,Austria, China and the United States.The Brown EnvelopeFive of Haas’s sketches had been on offer at aSotheby’s auction in Tel Aviv, held 12 October1995. I knew about this because as a collector, Irely for much of my information on old auctioncatalogues, and being as pedantic as I am, hadbought all the back auction catalogues which Istudy and use for research and identificationpurposes. At that time, I had not been interested inthese because I had not yet started collectingHolocaust art, nor had my interest been particularlyroused by the above lecture.I had arranged that evening to visit one of mydealer friends. On the way to his apartment inMea Shearim we discussed the course at YadVashem, his family and mine. When we arrived,I met his parents. His father, now very ill andwheelchair-bound, had been, as his son now was,one of the foremost Judaica dealers in Israel.I was searching through the Judaica on offerwhen he said to himself, “Holocaust, wait”, andleft the room, reappearing with a large, grubby,tattered brown envelope. “I once had to buy thisalong with a Judaica collection in Europe. Maybeyou could use it?” He removed a piece of paperfrom this envelope and handed it to me to me toperuse, asking if it could be of use in my teachingabout the Holocaust through my Art and Artefactscollection. My hands trembled as I gazed uponthe sketch The Roll Call done by Leo Haas inMauthausen concentration camp. Could I use it?What a question!From Sachsenhausen, Haas was sent toEbensee before being liberated at Mauthausen.Fortunately his wife, Erna, had survived as hadFrida Ungar and her daughter, but most of hisfriends and family had perished. Ungar had diedduring the Death March to Buchenwald, Blochhad been beaten to death in Theresienstadt, Frittahad died in Auschwitz and his wife inTheresienstadt. However, little Thomas Fritta hadsurvived, although was in very poor health; theHaases adopted him and settled in Prague.Haas returned to Theresienstadt, where hefound his entire art collection. He also foundmany works produced by Fritta, including themanuscript of Tommy. These had been buried inpottery containers made by the adjoining potteryclass. After his wife’s death, Haas moved to EastBerlin, where he worked as the editor of acaricature journal called Eulenspiegel andMy friend’s mother entered at this point. Whenshe saw the sketch she said to me, “I am a survivorfrom Warsaw Ghetto.” She left to return shortlyafterwards clutching a flat manila file. “This wasfrom my friend”. Inside the file were seven pencilsketches on small scraps of paper protected bytissue paper. At my request, she proceeded to tellme the story of her friend and the sketches. As ayoung girl she had lived with her parents in a flatin Warsaw. Next door lived her best friend; they41
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