Finding Meaning Through Art-Making

Approximately 40,000 works of art have been documented since the liberation in 1945. This collection of artwork – created in camps, ghettos, and in hiding – epitomizes the power of creativity and the strength of spirit. It is striking, especially from the perspective of art therapy, to consider the concept of art-making in the midst of a genocide. That a creative impulse could be attained suggests that it supported survival in some way.

The exhibit represents the artists who secretly created while captive during the Holocaust, and the importance of art-making in response to tragedy. 

Gert H. Wollheim (1894-1974) Am Stacheldraht (At the  Barbed  Wire) 1940. Gurs, France. Courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Frederick Terna (1923-2022). Near the Railway, Terezin, 1943. Courtesy of Beit Theresienstadt, Kibbutz Givat Hayim- Ihud, Israel

Halina Olomucki (1919-2007). The Hunger. Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1943-1945. Courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection

Franciszek Jaźwiecki (1900-1946).  A Portrait of Piotr Kajzer. Buchenwald 1944. Courtesy ofAuschwitz-Birkenau State Museum

More from Dr. Elizabeth Hlavek DAT, LCPAT, ATR-BC: 

https://www.routledge.com/A-Meaning-Based-Approach-to-Art-Therapy-From-the-Holocaust-to-Contemporary/Hlavek/p/book/9780367750770