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Mother Protecting Child
Número del objetoM1999/025
TítuloMother Protecting Child
Creador Mrs. Olga Horak (artist)
DescripciónBas-relief sculpture entitled "Mother Protecting Child" by Olga Horak. It is made of Plaster-of-Paris, bronze and lacquer figures on a copper covered wooden mount.
Sculptural relief of two elongated figures, the standing being the mother protecting her seated child. Composition is framed by a branch with leaves.The mother embraces the child, her head bent down. The child siting silently also head down as both in a deep prayer. The figures are made of plaster of Paris and treated with fibre glass coating, mounted onto an embossed copper board. The piece was done by Olga Horak, a Holocaust survivor and guide at the SJM. Olga was eventually liberated in Bergen Belsen but her mother perished that same day. (see Notes)
"Mother protecting child" was donated by Olga in memory of her family, victims of the Holocaust. Like in other of her artworks, she has produced, the sad, elongated, skinny figures are an expression of sorrow, recalling her memory of her own mother. A brass engraved sign is part of the relief.
Donated by Olga Horak in 1998.
See other sculptures by Olga Horak, ie. M2015/013, M2010/066
Olga Horak (nee Rosenberger) was born in August 1926 in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia to Hugo and Piroschka Rosenberger. She was 17 when first deported to Sered, then Auschwitz- Birkenau, Kurzbach, Gross Rosen and Bergen-Belsen, where she was liberated. She immigrated to Australia in 1949. Olga received an OAM in 2014 for service to her community.
Olga witnessed the Nazi Regime turn Czechoslovakia into a 'puppet republic'. The government agreed to laws that restricted the lives of Jews. They weren't allowed to go to school, be out after dark, go to the movies or sit on a park bench.
In 1942, Olga's sister Judith was taken in a roundup of 16-year-old Jewish boys and girls to Auschwitz. She never saw her sister again. Out of fear, her parents made plans to escape; they illegally crossed the border into Hungary, but Budapest wasn't easy because they didn't have papers or a home. When bombings began in 1944, Olga and her parents couldn't take refuge in the shelters without being caught. They returned to Bratislava, crossing illegally over the border again.
Back home, Olga's family had false papers. But a cousin was found out and these documents were no longer secure. The family went into hiding with the help of a family friend, but the same friend denounced them two weeks later. The family was taken to a collection camp in Sered before being put in cattle cars to Auschwitz. During the selection process, her father, grandmother, aunts and cousins were taken away and murdered. Olga and her mother were stripped, shaven, registered, and sent to Germany into a camp where they had to carry logs and dig trenches. One morning, the women were evacuated on a Death March, walking through the snow until reaching Gross Rosen. After three days, they marched again until they arrived in Dresden, eventually ending up in Bergen-Belsen. On 15 April 1945, they were liberated by British and Canadian troops. Inmates were registered as survivors, but just as her mother received her card, she collapsed and died. A day that was supposed to be celebratory turned out to be one of the saddest of Olga's life.
Olga was taken to a German hospital where she was left to die. A Catholic Padre from the British Army came to give her last rites. Instead she asked for a Rabbi who arranged for her to be returned back to the sick bay at the camp. She stayed there until late August and was then transported to a hospital in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, weighing 29 kilos. She was placed next to a Catholic woman named Bozena. When Olga was discharged, Bozena took her home with her. Soon, Olga found distant relatives in Bratislava who survived and she lived with them for two years before she met her husband, John Horak, a survivor who had trained as a textile engineer in Brno.
They were determined to leave Czechoslovakia. Eventually they got a tourist visa for Switzerland and then landing permits for Australia. They arrived on the TSS Cyrenia on 16 September 1949 where they established a business manufacturing blouses, Hibodress, within two weeks after arriving.
Sculptural relief of two elongated figures, the standing being the mother protecting her seated child. Composition is framed by a branch with leaves.The mother embraces the child, her head bent down. The child siting silently also head down as both in a deep prayer. The figures are made of plaster of Paris and treated with fibre glass coating, mounted onto an embossed copper board. The piece was done by Olga Horak, a Holocaust survivor and guide at the SJM. Olga was eventually liberated in Bergen Belsen but her mother perished that same day. (see Notes)
"Mother protecting child" was donated by Olga in memory of her family, victims of the Holocaust. Like in other of her artworks, she has produced, the sad, elongated, skinny figures are an expression of sorrow, recalling her memory of her own mother. A brass engraved sign is part of the relief.
Donated by Olga Horak in 1998.
See other sculptures by Olga Horak, ie. M2015/013, M2010/066
Olga Horak (nee Rosenberger) was born in August 1926 in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia to Hugo and Piroschka Rosenberger. She was 17 when first deported to Sered, then Auschwitz- Birkenau, Kurzbach, Gross Rosen and Bergen-Belsen, where she was liberated. She immigrated to Australia in 1949. Olga received an OAM in 2014 for service to her community.
Olga witnessed the Nazi Regime turn Czechoslovakia into a 'puppet republic'. The government agreed to laws that restricted the lives of Jews. They weren't allowed to go to school, be out after dark, go to the movies or sit on a park bench.
In 1942, Olga's sister Judith was taken in a roundup of 16-year-old Jewish boys and girls to Auschwitz. She never saw her sister again. Out of fear, her parents made plans to escape; they illegally crossed the border into Hungary, but Budapest wasn't easy because they didn't have papers or a home. When bombings began in 1944, Olga and her parents couldn't take refuge in the shelters without being caught. They returned to Bratislava, crossing illegally over the border again.
Back home, Olga's family had false papers. But a cousin was found out and these documents were no longer secure. The family went into hiding with the help of a family friend, but the same friend denounced them two weeks later. The family was taken to a collection camp in Sered before being put in cattle cars to Auschwitz. During the selection process, her father, grandmother, aunts and cousins were taken away and murdered. Olga and her mother were stripped, shaven, registered, and sent to Germany into a camp where they had to carry logs and dig trenches. One morning, the women were evacuated on a Death March, walking through the snow until reaching Gross Rosen. After three days, they marched again until they arrived in Dresden, eventually ending up in Bergen-Belsen. On 15 April 1945, they were liberated by British and Canadian troops. Inmates were registered as survivors, but just as her mother received her card, she collapsed and died. A day that was supposed to be celebratory turned out to be one of the saddest of Olga's life.
Olga was taken to a German hospital where she was left to die. A Catholic Padre from the British Army came to give her last rites. Instead she asked for a Rabbi who arranged for her to be returned back to the sick bay at the camp. She stayed there until late August and was then transported to a hospital in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, weighing 29 kilos. She was placed next to a Catholic woman named Bozena. When Olga was discharged, Bozena took her home with her. Soon, Olga found distant relatives in Bratislava who survived and she lived with them for two years before she met her husband, John Horak, a survivor who had trained as a textile engineer in Brno.
They were determined to leave Czechoslovakia. Eventually they got a tourist visa for Switzerland and then landing permits for Australia. They arrived on the TSS Cyrenia on 16 September 1949 where they established a business manufacturing blouses, Hibodress, within two weeks after arriving.
Nombre del objetosculptures
Dimensiones
- height: 910.00 mm
width: 285.00 mm
depth: 25.00 mm
Línea de créditoSydney Jewish Museum Collection, Donated by the artist, Mrs. Olga Horak. This artwork is donated in memory of her family - victims of the Holocaust.