Frederick Terna (October 8, 1923 – December 8, 2022) was an Austrian-born American painter and Holocaust survivor who lived for many years in Brooklyn, New York.

Early life and Shoah

Frederick Terna was born Friedrich Arthur Taussig to Jochanan "Jan" and Lona (née Herzog) Taussig in Vienna on October 8, 1923. In 1926, his brother Tomáš "Tommy" was born. Later that year, the family moved back to their hometown of Prague. After the German invasion of 1939, the brothers Fred and Tommy were barred from attending school as Jews. Terna's family went into hiding in the Czech countryside and acquired false identities changing their name to "Terna" from "Taussig." The false identity was discovered in 1941 and the family was sent to concentration camps. Terna was interned at the Lípa forced labor camp from October of that year to March 1943. He was then transferred to the

Theresienstadt Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the Schutzstaffel, SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupation of Czechoslovakia, German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstad ...

concentration camp, where he was briefly reunited with his father, who had been deported to Theresienstadt in December 1941. In the fall of 1944 Terna was deported to

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

. Towards the end of 1944 he was transferred again to Kaufering, a sub-camp of

Dachau , , commandant = List of commandants , known for = , location = Upper Bavaria, Southern Germany , built by = Germany , operated by = ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) , original use = Political prison , construction ...

. He was liberated in April 1945 and spent the next new months in a hospital. His entire family was murdered in the Shoah.

Later life and artistic career

In 1946 Terna went to Paris and studied painting at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and at the

Académie Julian The Académie Julian () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907) that was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number a ...

. In 1952 he moved to New York City, where he lived for the remainder of his life. His artistic oeuvre dealt with his experiences in the concentration camps and with themes of Jewish thought and history. His paintings are part of important public and private collections, including the Smithsonian Institution and the Albertina. Terna has taught a course on the history of Jewish art at the New School. Terna died on December 8, 2022, at the age of 99. Terna's funeral was held at Kane Street Synagogue in Brooklyn, where he had been a longtime member.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Terna, Fredrick 1923 births 2022 deaths American people of Austrian-Jewish descent Jewish painters Holocaust survivors Theresienstadt Ghetto prisoners Auschwitz concentration camp prisoners Painters from Brooklyn Painters from Vienna The New School faculty

Early life and Shoah

Later life and artistic career

Further reading

References