us-005578-irn45712-irn11586
type: RecordSet
physical characterisitics and technical requirements: Ink sketch on paper depicting a long 2 story building angled to the right on a barren landscape. It has a gabled roof with multiple chimneys, rows of windows, and a short wall. There are tall abstract trees behind it and on the right with their branches curving upwards. The artist’s signature and a Hebrew inscription is at the bottom. front, bottom, black ink : Hebrew text [Ester Lurie agilin la-Panorama GEto Kovno (Lo Butsa) / Bet Va'ad zikne Ha 'Edah. Etsim i - Rehov Vafnija(?) Ester Lurie Exercises of the Kovno Ghetto Panorama (not accomplished) / Building of the Elders Committee. / Trees on Vafnija(?) St.]
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
conditions of use: No restrictions on use
date: approximately 1965, approximately 1943
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had some members with language: heb
has or had some members with language: eng
has record set type: Item
history: The ink drawing was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1996 by Esther Lurie.
history: Esther Lurie (1913-1998) was born in Liepaja (formerly Libau), Latvia, to a religious, intellectual Jewish family. Her parents were Josef and Bluma and she had five older sisters and an older brother. The family was forced to move to Riga during World War I (1914-1918), when Liepāja, a Baltic seaport which was then part of the Russian Empire, was taken over as a military port. Esther’s artistic gifts were nurtured from an early age. From 1931 -1934, she studied theatrical set design at the Instituts des Arts Decoratifs in Brussels, Belgium; in early 1934, she went to Antwerp, Belgium, to study drawing and painting at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts. Most of her family emigrated to Palestine in 1934 and Esther joined them there. She worked with the Hebrew Theater, producing set decorations, and by 1938, had her first one women art show, winning the Dizengoff Prize. In 1939, Esther went on a study-exhibition tour throughout Europe. She was visiting her sister, Muta, in Kovno (Kaunus), Lithuania, when World War II broke out and she was trapped in the area. In 1940, the Soviet Army invaded and occupied Lithuania and the persecution of Jews became widespread. In June-July 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union and soon occupied Lithuania. Almost immediately, German Einsatzgruppe (mobile killing units) and their Lithuanian auxiliaries began systematic massacres of Jews throughout the country. By November 1941, the surviving Jews of Kovno were imprisoned in a sealed ghetto surrounded by barbed wire. It was extreme overcrowded and there weresevere food shortages and frequent outbreaks of disease. Esther immediately began to record her experiences with sketches and written testimony on whatever little scraps of paper she could find. This was not easy and it could be dangerous – they were always under observation from guards. But other ghetto residents who saw her drawings thought it was important that someone should show ‘how it was’ and make a permanent record of their …
identifier: irn11586
is or was included in: us-005578-irn45712
record resource extent: overall: Height: 13.875 inches (35.243 cm) | Width: 19.625 inches (49.848 cm)
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: Ink drawing of Kovno Ghetto created by Esther Lurie in the 1960s, reconstructing a drawing she did in 1943 while she was imprisoned in the ghetto in German occupied Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania. It depicts the Elders Committee meeting place and the large blocks. Lurie's drawings and sketches, created from 1941-1944, while a prisoner in Kovno ghetto and Stutthof and Leibisch concentration camps, exhibited and published in 1945, presented eloquent visual and written testimony of daily life during the Holocaust. Esther, a professional artist, originally from Liepaja, Latvia, settled in Palestine in 1934. She was visiting her sister in Kovno in summer 1941 when it was occupied by Germany. She was confined to the ghetto and had to create portraits and paintings for the Germans. She also, at the request of the Jewish Council, dedicated herself to recording the daily life of the residents. In July 1944, the ghetto was liquidated. Esther was sent to Stutthof concentration camp, where she continued to draw. Her family members were sent to Auschwitz and murdered. In August 1944, Esther was deported to Leibisch, and liberated by the Soviet Army on January 21, 1945. During the journey back to Palestine, she lived in a displaced persons camp in Italy, where an exhibition of her drawings of Leibisch was held.
title: Drawing by Esther Lurie of a panoramic view of daily life in the Kovno ghetto