Leo Haas
Object numberM2020/020b
TitleLeo Haas
Creator Leo Haas (artist)
DescriptionPrint 2 in a portfolio of 12 lithographs by artist Leo Haas, published in Prague in 1947, which depict confronting images of life and death in concentration camps and ghettos. This print depicts a long column of men, women and children carting bags and bundles over their hunched shoulders. A large identification number is sewn onto their clothes. The sky is filled with carrion birds and a dark cloud of smoke bearing the letters SS. Each print in this series is accompanied by an extract of poetry by Milos Vacik, a poet jailed for anti-Nazi resistance activity, which serves as an interpretive introduction to the work:
Who would these fardles beare to grunt and sweat under weary life, but that the dread of something after Death, the undiscovered country, from whose borne no traveller returns. Hamlets gazing into the bulging eyes of Death remained fixed in the depths of the Will, which said: to wander over those paths leaving behind without remorse the services and comforts of the town, for the reality of this horror, to drag oneself to the end of the World only for a morsel of Life and punishment. Punishment, for what? For the astronomic numbers of innocent deportees, for numbers, which astronomers with all their instruments, having lost heaven and earth called the dark years instead of light years.
Leo Haas, born 15 April 1901 in Opava, Czechoslovakia, was a prominent Jewish artist practising painting and graphic work in Opava, Berlin and Vienna from 1924-1938. In 1938 when Nazi Germany annexed the Sudetenland border of Czechoslovakia which included Opava Haass work was denounced as degenerate. As a Jew and also a Communist, Haas was arrested in 1939 and deported first to Nisko labour camp then to forced labour in Ostrava. While in Ostrava he became involved in the underground, helping to smuggle people and goods out of the country. He was arrested for smuggling in August 1942 and transported to Theresienstadt one month later. He was assigned to the Technical Department, producing maps, charts, artwork and propaganda materials for the German SS camp administrators, in preparation for the June 1944 Red Cross visit. His work in the Technical Department provided access to art supplies which he and a group of other artists, including Bedrich Fritta, secretly used to depict the real horrors of ghetto life. Some artwork was smuggled out of the ghetto, while the remainder some 400 works were hidden in walls or buried. In June 1944, the artists were imprisoned in the Small Fortress and brutally tortured for information regarding the dissemination of their artworks. In October, Haas was deported to Auschwitz. One month later, he was transported to the Sachsenhausen camp, where he was assigned to a work detail counterfeiting foreign currency. In February 1945 he was transported to Mauthausen and Ebensee camps, where he was liberated. He returned to Theresienstadt to recover his hidden works.
This portfolio belonged to Trude Baumann (nee Teller, nee Weiss), who was imprisoned in Theresienstadt from 1942 until 1944, when she was deported to Auschwitz and subsequently Oederan, a subcamp of Flossenburg.
Who would these fardles beare to grunt and sweat under weary life, but that the dread of something after Death, the undiscovered country, from whose borne no traveller returns. Hamlets gazing into the bulging eyes of Death remained fixed in the depths of the Will, which said: to wander over those paths leaving behind without remorse the services and comforts of the town, for the reality of this horror, to drag oneself to the end of the World only for a morsel of Life and punishment. Punishment, for what? For the astronomic numbers of innocent deportees, for numbers, which astronomers with all their instruments, having lost heaven and earth called the dark years instead of light years.
Leo Haas, born 15 April 1901 in Opava, Czechoslovakia, was a prominent Jewish artist practising painting and graphic work in Opava, Berlin and Vienna from 1924-1938. In 1938 when Nazi Germany annexed the Sudetenland border of Czechoslovakia which included Opava Haass work was denounced as degenerate. As a Jew and also a Communist, Haas was arrested in 1939 and deported first to Nisko labour camp then to forced labour in Ostrava. While in Ostrava he became involved in the underground, helping to smuggle people and goods out of the country. He was arrested for smuggling in August 1942 and transported to Theresienstadt one month later. He was assigned to the Technical Department, producing maps, charts, artwork and propaganda materials for the German SS camp administrators, in preparation for the June 1944 Red Cross visit. His work in the Technical Department provided access to art supplies which he and a group of other artists, including Bedrich Fritta, secretly used to depict the real horrors of ghetto life. Some artwork was smuggled out of the ghetto, while the remainder some 400 works were hidden in walls or buried. In June 1944, the artists were imprisoned in the Small Fortress and brutally tortured for information regarding the dissemination of their artworks. In October, Haas was deported to Auschwitz. One month later, he was transported to the Sachsenhausen camp, where he was assigned to a work detail counterfeiting foreign currency. In February 1945 he was transported to Mauthausen and Ebensee camps, where he was liberated. He returned to Theresienstadt to recover his hidden works.
This portfolio belonged to Trude Baumann (nee Teller, nee Weiss), who was imprisoned in Theresienstadt from 1942 until 1944, when she was deported to Auschwitz and subsequently Oederan, a subcamp of Flossenburg.
Production placeCzechoslovakia
Production date 1947 - 1947
Subjectholocaust art, artists, concentration camps, survivors
Object nameprints
Materialpaper
Dimensions
- width: 480.00 mm
height: 340.00 mm
Credit lineSydney Jewish Museum Collection, Donated by Michael John Baumann
In appreciation to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) for supporting this archival project.