Sketchbook of drawings created by a former concentration camp prisoner
http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn9872 an entity of type: Record
Sketchbook of drawings created by a former concentration camp prisoner
Sketchbook of drawings created by a former concentration camp prisoner
1944 September 20-approximately 1950
overall: Height: 5.750 inches (14.605 cm) | Width: 4.125 inches (10.477 cm) | Depth: 0.375 inches (0.953 cm)
Sketchbook created by Adolf Frankl, depicting scenes from multiple concentration camps. It was likely created after the war, as a way for Adolf to process his experiences during the Holocaust. Adolf was living in his hometown of Bratislava with his wife, two children, and a large extended family, when the city became part of the Nazi puppet state of Slovakia in May 1939. When World War II began in September 1939, the family’s interior design store was confiscated and Aryanized. Adolf was able to continue working for the new owner, and received documentation protecting him and his family from persecution. On September 28, 1944, Adolf and his family were arrested for deportation. His wife convinced the guards to let her and the children go, but Adolf was transported to Sered concentration camp. After about a month, he was deported and arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center on November 4. By the time he arrived, gassing had stopped, but prisoners continued to be tortured, malnourished, and treated inhumanely. Adolf was caught and beaten multiple times for trading goods for cigarettes. In January 1945, Auschwitz was evacuated and Adolf was sent on a forced march to Gleiwitz. Adolf and a small group of prisoners escaped when their guards abandoned them one night. They made their way to the Auschwitz subcamp, Althammer, where Adolf hid in a typhus barrack until Soviet forces liberated the camp on January 27, 1945. He returned to Bratislava in April, and reunited with his wife and children, who had been in hiding. They moved back into their home until Slovakia’s 1948 communist revolution forced them to emigrate. In 1950, they moved to Vienna, Austria, where Adolf set up a small art studio and became a prolific painter.