us-005578-irn707145-irn708238
type: RecordSet
physical characterisitics and technical requirements: Portrait; front view; image of man wearing sweater and tie with arms folded. Handwritten text on along bottom on verso.
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
conditions of use: Restrictions on use
has beginning date: 1940-01-01
has end date: 1940-12-31
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has record set type: Item
history: The portrait was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2019 by Vivian Glaser Bernstein and Tomas P. Erban.
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…
identifier: irn708238
is or was included in: us-005578-irn707145
record resource extent: overall: Height: 11.560 inches (29.362 cm) | Width: 8.190 inches (20.803 cm)
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: Leo Haas drawing of Richard Lichtenstern.
title: Pencil portrait