us-005578-irn513390-irn513925
is or was included in: us-005578-irn513390
has beginning date: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/dates/1945-01-01
conditions of use: Restrictions on use
record resource extent: overall: Height: 14.625 inches (37.148 cm) | Width: 19.750 inches (50.165 cm) pictorial area: Height: 8.625 inches (21.908 cm) | Width: 11.375 inches (28.893 cm)
has beginning date: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/dates/1966-01-01
title: Next to Last Station, Auschwitz 1944-45 Leo Haas aquatint of elderly people disembarking from a transport train
biographical history: Leo Haas was born on April 15, 1901, in Opava, Czechoslovakia, Austro-Hungary (now Czech Republic), formerly Troppau, an ethnic German region in Silesia. Leo was the oldest of four children in a Jewish family. He received art training while a youth. In 1919, Haas moved to Karlsruhe, Germany, to attend the Art Academy. He supported himself by working as a musician in local bars and by selling paintings. In 1922, he moved to Berlin where he studied with Emil Orlik and Wilhelm Jäckel. He absorbed the bold, dramatic styles of the Expressionist and Modernist movements flourishing in the city. He closely studied the work of graphic artists such as Goya and Toulouse-Lautrec in his 1923 travels in France. In 1925, he moved to Vienna, Austria, and established himself as a portraitist and newspaper caricaturist. In 1926, Haas returned to Opava, where he continued his career as painter and graphic artist, and set up a lithography studio. He also designed sets for a local theater troupe. Haas married Sophie Hermann in 1929. He was active in the Communist Party and several artist’s cooperatives. In the fall of 1938, Nazi Germany annexed the Sudetenland border of Czechoslovakia, which included Opava. Antisemitism surged after the takeover. Haas’s work was denounced as degenerate. After the Kristallnacht pogrom on early November, he and his wife moved to Ostrava to live with her parents. In March 1939, Germany annexed the provinces of Bohemia and Moravia. German allies took over other regions and Czechoslovakia ceased to exist. There were widespread arrests of Jews, Communists, and prominent community members. In June, Jews were barred from most economic activity and property was confiscated. That September, Germany invaded Poland, the start of the Second World War. Haas was arrested for being a Communist and sent to Nisko labor camp near Lublin in German occupied Poland, where he drove supply wagons. He made portraits of SS camp personnel, in exchange for extra food and art suppl…
has record set type: Item
type: RecordSet
has or had holder: us-005578
scope and content: Aquatint created by Leo Haas in 1966 based upon sketches made in 1945 shortly after the end of the war. It is based on scenes he witnessed in 1942 while an inmate of Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp. It depicts inmates disembarking from a transport train in the pouring rain. Haas was an inmate of Terezin from September 1942-October 1944. Haas, 38, a Czech Jew and a professional artist, was arrested in 1939 in Ostrava in German occupied Czechoslovakia for being a Communist. He was deported to Nisko labor camp in Poland, then shipped back to Ostrava to do forced labor. In September 1942, he was sent to Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp, where he became part of a tight knit group of artists determined to secretly document the misery and suffering of daily life in the ghetto. They hid their work in the camp, and much was recovered postwar. In summer 1944, they were accused by the Gestapo of smuggling their 'gruesome' work out of the camp and were arrested and tortured. In October, Haas was deported to Auschwitz, and a month later, to Sachsenhausen. In February 1945, he was transported to Mauthausen and then Ebensee. He was liberated there on May 4-5 by American troops.
identifier: irn513925
archival history: The aquatint was acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2003.
has end date: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/dates/1966-12-31
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
physical characteristics and technical requirements: Aquatint and drypoint on paper depicting an open traincar with gaunt, elderly, and infirm people crowded in the doorway, disembarking onto a platform filled with dead, ill, and collapsing inmates. A man with a Star of David armband assists those in the door and another helps an ill man seated on the ground. In the left foreground stands a uniformed guard in a hat and long overcoat, with a cane, enjoying a cigar. To the right is a partial view of another traincar unloading. It is pouring rain and the sky is black with dark gray clouds. Signed and dated by the artist on the sheet. front, bottom right corner, pencil : 20 back, top right corner, blue marker : 16
has end date: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/dates/1945-12-31
has or had identifier: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn513390-irn513925/alternateIDs/1
results or resulted from: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn513390-irn513925/acquisitions/1