Esther Lurie, was an established professional painter, who had studied art in Brussels and Antwerp. When she was visiting relatives in Lithuania in 1941, the Germans came and she became an inmate of the Kovno Ghetto. She drew and painted these scenes while in the ghetto. A Palestinian Jew born in Latvia, Esther Lurie's works are an important part of Israel exhibitions dealing with the destruction of European Jewry.