Many of the Jews sent to Terezin were prominent in the fields of culture: painters, artists, musicians, educators, philosophers and others. One of them was Leo Haas, a German Jewish painter, who was deported to the Terezin ghetto in 1942.
In the video, "Artists of Terezin: Guidelines for Educators," ISHS staff member Liz Elsby presents the work "SS Dog", created in the camp by Leo Haas, and demonstrates how we can use it to teach about the Holocaust.
Liz Elsby is an artist, graphic designer, and guide at Yad Vashem.
Further pedagogical considerations
- Note that Terezin was a fraud, an illusion. This was a “model” ghetto that in fact served as a transit camp on the way to extermination camps.
- What is the added value of using art in teaching the Holocaust? What nuances can art convey that other sources cannot?
- What did the artists of Terezin try to convey through their art, that cannot be seen in the Nazi propaganda?
- We can discuss art’s role within the context of Terezin: This was documentation by way of art. The artists created for us, the viewer - they wanted us to see the artwork, to know what had happened.
Teaching aids
Lesson plans
Resources
- Wehrmacht Propaganda Troops and the Jews - Daniel Uziel
- Ordinary Men, Extraordinary Photos by Judith Levin and Daniel Uziel
- Main Camps and Killing Sites During the Nazi Era
- The Deportations of Jews Project
- The Smuggling of Food into the Warsaw Ghetto
- Ghettos in Nazi Occupied Europe 1939-1944
- Life Or Theatre
- From the Testimony of Jan Burke on the Making of a Nazi Propaganda Film in Theresienstadt
- From the Testimony of Jan Burke on the Cultural life in the Ghetto
Online Exhibitions
Learning Environments
Testimonies
