Open AccessTheresienstadt Ghetto: Propaganda, Paintings, and Protest
Author(s) -
Navya Agarwal,
Kah Ying Cho
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of student research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2167-1907
DOI - 10.47611/jsrhs.v10i3.1541
Subject(s) - nazism , the holocaust , judaism , sketch , painting , illusion , art , art history , visual arts , sociology , aesthetics , law , history , political science , psychology , computer science , archaeology , algorithm , neuroscience , politics
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.