The drawing was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2002 by Charles Weingarten.
overall: Height: 8.875 inches (22.543 cm) | Width: 6.750 inches (17.145 cm)
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Child's drawing created by 4 year old Charly A. Weingarten circa 1944-45 while living in hiding with his mother. It depicts a fight between Amercan Indians and cowboys. Charles was born in 1941 in Italian occupied Nice not long after his mother Margarethe's release from Gurs internment camp. She was a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany who had resided primarily in France since the early 1930s. In 1943, the Germans, who had occupied northern France since May 1940, assumed control of much of southern France. Margarethe went into hiding with Charly under assumed identities as Catholics. They lived in poverty on the grounds of an estate and Charly suffered from chronic bronchitis and severe malnutrition. Nice was liberated by American troops in August 1944. After the war ended in May 1945, Charly was sent to a children's home in Switzerland to recuperate.
Drawing of a battle between American Indians and cowboys by a hidden child
Charles Albert Weingarten was born on January 13, 1941, in Nice, France, to Margarethe Weingarten, an actress, and Rudolf Gelb. Margarethe was born in 1904 in Leipzig, Germany, to a family of Belarusian and Polish furriers. She and her first husband, Karl Albert Foerst, left Germany for South America in the early 1930s, but Margarethe became ill and they moved to Paris, France. On November 7, 1938, Herschel Grynszpan, a Jewish youth walked into the German embassy in Paris and shot Ernst vom Rath, a German diplomat, who died two days. Nazi Party officials claimed it was the act of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy and used it as a pretext for Kristallnacht, the violent anti-Jewish pogrom in Germany on November 9-10. Margarethe and Karl, who were active in left-wing politics, were arrested by the French police and deported to Germany. Karl was shot in Buchenwald on January 20, 1939. Margaret was able to return to Paris, accompanied by her mother, Glika Chaya Weingarten. In May 1940, Germany invaded France and Margarethe fled to Nice where she met Rudolf Gelb. Rudolf was a married Austrian Jew who had escaped from Dachau concentration camp in Germany and was in France as a foreign worker. In 1940, not long after Margarethe became pregnant, she was were sent to Gurs internment camp. Her mother was able to bribe someone in the camp and she was soon released. They returned to Nice and settled in the Italian occupied section where Charles was born. In 1943, the Germans occupied southern France. Margarethe hid with Charles in a basement. In July, she obtained false papers for them as Catholics and moved with Charles to the grounds of a villa owned by the Matteudi family. Rudolf escaped to Switzerland. Glika was given a hiding place in the convent of the Sisters of the Poor in Nice. Margarethe made canvas shoes to sell, but she made very little. They often had little to eat and Charles suffered from severe malnutrition and chronic bronchitis. Nice was liberated in late August 1944 and the war ended in May 1945. Charles was sent to recuperate in a Jewish children’s home in Switzerland. Rudolf survived the war in Switzerland and returned to Austria. Margarethe married Karl Ferdinand Delius, a photographer and journalist originally from Berlin. Margarethe, 65, passed away in 1969. Charles immigrated to the United States in the late 1960s, but returned to France in the 1990s.
Child's pencil drawing on blue paper depicting a battle scene between American Indian warriors and cowboys. The paper is a repurposed time form, with preprinted text and lines: Emploi du temps and the days of the week, Lundi - Samedi.