us-005578-irn60875-irn61212
type: RecordSet
archival history: The drawing was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1995 by Esther Lurie.
biographical 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 …
physical characteristics and technical requirements: Drawings in ink on paper of 2 portraits of the same woman. She has full bodied but disheveled, shoulder length hair, and large expressive eyes under thick, dark eyebrows, and a closed mouth with full lips. She appears younger in the left sketch which has less detail and shading. In the right sketch, the right side of her face is shaded and there are lines under her eyes and around her nose and mouth. The artist’s signature and a Hebrew inscription is below each drawing. The large paper is folded into quarters and has numerous tears. front, lower left, ink : Esther Lurie Hebrew text [Esther Lurie 1976 Tel Aviv] front, lower right, ink : Esther Lurie Hebrew text [According to an image from Jewish Women in Slavery drawn in 1944 at forced labor camp Leibisch] back : Esther Lurie, Tel Aviv 1976
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
conditions of use: No restrictions on use
has beginning date: 1976-01-01
has beginning date: 1944-01-01
has end date: 1944-12-31
has end date: 1976-12-31
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had some members with language: eng
has or had some members with language: heb
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn61212
is or was included in: us-005578-irn60875
record resource extent: overall: Height: 23.500 inches (59.69 cm) | Width: 19.000 inches (48.26 cm)
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: Two portraits of the same woman drawn by Esther Lurie, 1976 recreations of a drawing she created while both women were prisoners in Leibisch slave labor camp. It was exhibited and published soon after the war in 1945 in her book, Jewesses in Slavery. Esther, originally from Liepaja, Latvia, settled in Palestine in 1934. She was visiting her sister in Kovno (Kaunas, Lithuania] 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 her drawings of Leibisch were exhibited.
title: Portraits of a fellow concentration camp inmate by Esther Lurie