us-005578-irn513390-irn521114
type: RecordSet
archival history: The drawing was acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2003.
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…
physical characteristics and technical requirements: Aquatint and drypoint etching on wove paper of a medium view of a large stack of coffins piled on the open back of a truck at a camp gate. Clothing hangs out of some coffins. A man with a Star of David badge sits on top of the stack, elbows on knees, head in his hands; another man walks near the back left wheel. A uniformed guard stands in the left background, near the front of the truck, next to a raised gate rail. A long dirt road winds into the distance. On the right is a brick structure with a gated arch at the bottom and a grass covered mound on top; behind can be seen a distant steeple. In the bottom corners are the upper bodies of 3 bedraggled figures with covered heads, a man and woman on the left and a old woman with a sad face on the right. Artists' initials LH are printed within the image. The sheet is signed and captioned by the artist. front, bottom, pencil : 20
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
conditions of use: Restrictions on use
has beginning date: 1966-01-01
has beginning date: 1942-01-01
has end date: 1966-12-31
has end date: 1942-12-31
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had some members with language: deu
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn521114
is or was included in: us-005578-irn513390
record resource extent: overall: Height: 10.000 inches (25.4 cm) | Width: 14.875 inches (37.783 cm) pictorial area: Height: 8.375 inches (21.273 cm) | Width: 11.250 inches (28.575 cm)
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: Aquatint created by Leo Haas in 1966 based upon sketches made in 1942 based on scenes he witnessed while an inmate of Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp. It depicts a truckload of coffins leaving Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp during a typhus epidemic. 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 begin a member of the Communist Party. 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 conditions of daily life in the camp. In summer of 1944, they were accused by the Gestapo of smuggling their gruesome work out of the camp. Haas was arrested and tortured. In October, he 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.
title: Leo Haas aquatint of a truck piled with coffins leaving Terezin