us-005578-irn37868-irn42647
has or had identifier: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn37868-irn42647/alternateIDs/1
is or was included in: us-005578-irn37868
has or had holder: us-005578
date: 1944 May
has or had some members with language: eng
history: The sculpture was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2009 by Daisy Brand.
has end date: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/dates/2003-12-31
record resource extent: overall: Height: 29.500 inches (74.93 cm) | Width: 20.120 inches (51.105 cm) | Depth: 2.500 inches (6.35 cm)
has record set type: Item
physical characterisitics and technical requirements: Mixed media sculpture made from 3 ceramic squares painted blue with turquoise splotches, attached to a wood backing with rough edges. It depicts 2 faces staring out of an archway, above a pile of rubble, a memorial to the artist’s father who was murdered and cremated at Auschwitz. In the center is a protruding arch; set inside the arch are 2 masklike, human, terracotta heads above a pile of terracotta stone rubble. Below the arch is are 2 black ceramic cuffs with a black ceramic bar inserted through them. Hanging from the pipe are 2 black and white ceramic ribbons. The artist's signature is incised at the bottom right corner.
scope and content: Ceramic wall sculpture created by Daisy Brand to express her grief over her father's cremation at Auschwitz after being murdered in the gas chamber. Daisy's art became infused with her Holocaust experience in the 1980s. Her references are suggestive and deliberately ambiguous and she keeps the exact meaning of the symbolism in her work private, thus more evocative and universal. Daisy and her family lived in Chust, Hungary, when it was occupied by the Germans in March 1944. By May, Daisy and her family were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Her father went directly to the gas chamber. Daisy, aged 15, her sister, Mary, aged 19, and her mother, Aranka, aged 39, were selected as forced labor for Kaiserwald concentration camp. In July 1944, the camp was evacuated as Soviet and American forces approached. Aranka disappeared during the forced march. Daisy and Mary were transferred to multiple concentration camps: Dondagen II, Libau, Stutthof, and Buchenwald. On April 17, Buchenwald was evacuated; camp inmates began a forced march to Dachau. They were freed by American forces near Wurzen, Germany, on April 24, 1945. In mid-May, Daisy and her sister were repatriated to their native city, Bratislava, in Czechoslovakia. With the help of the Red Cross, they found an aunt and uncle who took in the girls. This couple, and one other aunt, were their only relatives to survive the Holocaust.
results or resulted from: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn37868-irn42647/acquisitions/1
conditions of use: Restrictions on use
identifier: irn42647
has beginning date: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/dates/2003-01-01
type: RecordSet
history: Daisy Schweiger was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, on September 24, 1929, to Aranka, born in 1905, and Ludwig Schweiger, born 1896. She had an older sister, Mary, born on November 3, 1936. Ludwig was a bank director. Her mother had attended finishing school in Vienna where she studied English, and thus she gave her children English first names. The family was comfortably upper-middle class and assimilated into local culture. They spoke German and Hungarian at home. In September 1939, the western powers signed the Munich Pact agreeing to the German annexation of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia in exchange for a pledge of peace from Hitler. Not long after this, with the support of Nazi Germany, Hungary and Poland annexed adjacent regions as well. The bank where Ludwig worked transferred him to a small branch in Chust (Huszt, Ukraine), a region annexed by Hungary. The Schweigers became Hungarian citizens. Anti-Jewish laws were introduced gradually, but by 1942, Jews were stripped of their rights and forced out of many professions. Ludwig lost his job at the bank, and many of the family’s possessions were sold to support the family. In March 1944, Germany occupied Hungary. All Jews were interned in ghettos and soon the Germans began systematic deportations of the Jewish population to concentration camps. In May, Daisy and her family were taken from the Jewish ghetto to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, arriving on June 7. Her father was immediately sent to the gas chamber. Daisy, her mother, Aranka, and her sister, Mary, were transferred to Birkenau. After three weeks, they were among a group of women selected by Josef Mengele for forced labor in a different camp. That night, they were locked in a concrete building just outside the barbed wire fence, not far from the railway tracks. There were no windows in the room, just a few small glass panels near the ceiling. The women were crammed in, standing room only. The next morning when they were on their way to the …
title: Mixed media wall sculpture by Daisy Brand mourning the cremation of her father at Auschwitz
conditions of access: No restrictions on access