Jewish Culture in the Ghettos and Camps during the Holocaust Period

During the Holocaust, while incarcerated in ghettos and camps, living in hiding or on the run, many Jews attempted to maintain the artistic and cultural activities that had existed before the war.  In order to sketch and paint their fellow Jews, they obtained paint, charcoal and pencils, sometimes at mortal risk, and often in exchange for their daily rations; they fashioned objects, games and tools; many wrote diaries documenting their daily lives.  The diaries of the Judenrat heads and the archives written in the ghettos also documented artistic and cultural life.