The horrors of Auschwitz in art

While many of the so-called "degenerate artists" persecuted by the Nazis are now world-renowned, those who painted in concentration camps, such as Waldemar Nowakowski (pictured) are almost forgotten. The book and the exhibition "Der Tod hat nicht das letzte Wort" (Death does not have the last word), opening on January 27 in the German Parliament, the Bundestag, offer a tribute to these artists.

The writer, exhibition curator and art historian Jürgen Kaumkötter spent more than 15 years researching Holocaust art. His focus goes beyond the works which emerged during the war, including all forms of art dealing with the events in retrospect. Leo Haas created this etching about the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1947. Some inmates even managed to draw while they were in the camps.

Artistic life in Theresienstadt has been better documented than that in Auschwitz, which nevertheless had its own "concentration camp museum." Artists were given pencils, brushes and paper to carry out assignments for the Nazis. Other works were created covertly. However, almost no art emerged from the extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. Pictured here: Marian Ruzamski, self-portrait, 1943-44.

Yehuda Bacon (pictured right) arrived in Theresienstadt in 1942, when he was 13 years old. He was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau in December 1943, where he was employed as a messenger and was allowed to warm up by the ovens of the crematories in winter. Not only would he later testify during the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials, he'd also show what he saw there through the drawings he made after the war.

Later drawings by Yehuda Bacon do not show Auschwitz in detail, unlike those he made for the Frankfurt judges. Yet one can still recognize the square chimneys of the crematories, a shower head, and outlines of people. For art historian Kaumkötter these images are an allegory of death in the gas chambers and graves in the skies. Beyond their testimonial value, they are valuable works of art.

Michel Kichka is an influential comic illustrator in Israel. The graphic novel "Zweite Generation. Was ich meinem Vater nie gesagt habe" ("Second generation: what I never told my father") deals with his relationship with his father, an Auschwitz survivor. As a child, Kichka was traumatized by his father's story. His dad's jokes about the concentration camp would help him overcome his nightmares.

The parents of the Israeli artist Sigalit Landau were also Holocaust survivors, and her art teacher was the Auschwitz survivor Yehuda Bacon, who is still active as an artist and professor in Israel to this day. Her works integrate metaphorical allusions to the Shoah, such as these shoes, reminiscent of the mountains of footwear which can be seen in the permanent exhibition at Auschwitz.

Sigalit Landau collected a hundred pairs of shoes in Israel and sank them in the Dead Sea. The sea covered the shoes with layers of its healing salt, an allegory for life beyond death. She wanted to show them in Berlin, as a symbol for hope overcoming despair. The exhibition "Der Tod hat nicht das letzte Wort" ("Death does not have the final word"), will stay in Berlin until February 27.