Malva Schalek, aka Malvina Schalková (18 February 1882 – 24 May 1944 or 24 March 1945), was a Czech-Jewish

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

. Trained in Prague, she went on to work in Vienna as a painter. From 1942 to 1944 she was imprisoned in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. In 1944 she was moved to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where she died. Many of her works are held in the

Ghetto Fighters' House The Ghetto Fighters' House ( he, בית לוחמי הגטאות, ''Beit Lohamei Ha-Getaot''), full name, Itzhak Katzenelson Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Heritage Museum, Documentation and Study Center, was founded in 1949 by members of Kibbut ...

in Israel.

Life

Malva Schalek was born in Prague to a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

-speaking Jewish intellectual family active in the Czech national movement.Simon, Ekstein, see th
article
as well as the article on her niece,

Lisa Fittko Lisa Fittko (born Elizabeth Eckstein, hu, Eckstein (Ekstein) Erzsébet; 1909 – March 12, 2005) helped many escape from Nazi-occupied France during World War II. The author of two memoirs about wartime Europe, Fittko is also known for her a ...

. She went to school in Prague, Vrchlabi (Hohenelbe), and studied art, first at the Frauenakademie in Munich and then privately in Vienna. She earned her living as a painter in Vienna, in her studio above the Theater an der Wien, until July 1938, when she was forced to flee from the Nazis, leaving her paintings behind. Only some 30 works from this period have been recovered; two were found in the Historisches Zentrum von Wien. Schalek was deported to the Terezin (Theresienstadt) ghetto in February 1942, where she produced more than 100 drawings and watercolors portraying fellow inmates and their life there. Because of her refusal to portray a

collaborationist Wartime collaboration is cooperation with the enemy against one's country of citizenship in wartime, and in the words of historian Gerhard Hirschfeld, "is as old as war and the occupation of foreign territory". The term ''collaborator'' dates to t ...

doctor, she 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 ...

on 18 May 1944, where she died.

Work

Her work, especially her drawings of the camp at Theresienstadt, is characterized by a sober realism. These drawings have been described by Tom L. Freudenheim, director of the Baltimore Museum of Art, as "perhaps the finest and most complete artistic oeuvre to survive the Holocaust." Recovered after the liberation, most are in the art collection of the Ghetto Fighters' House museum at

kibbutz A kibbutz ( he, קִבּוּץ / , lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural: kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming h ...

Lohamei HaGeta'ot Lohamei HaGeta'ot ( he, לוֹחֲמֵי הַגֵּיטָאוֹת, ''lit.'' The Ghetto Fighters) is a kibbutz in northern Israel. Located in the western Galilee, it falls under the jurisdiction of Mateh Asher Regional Council. In it had a popula ...

in Israel.

References

* ''Spiritual Resistance: Art from Concentration Camps, 1940-1945'': a Selection of Drawings and Paintings from the Collection of Kibbutz Lohamei Haghetaot, Israel, with essays by Miriam Novitch,

Lucy S. Dawidowicz Lucy Dawidowicz ( Schildkret; June 16, 1915 – December 5, 1990) was an American historian and writer. She wrote books about modern Jewish history, in particular, she wrote books about the Holocaust. Life Dawidowicz was born in New York City a ...

, and Tom L. Freudenheim. Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Jewish Publication Society of America, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1981 , 9780807401576 * Heinrich Fuchs, ''Die österreichischen Maler der Geburtsjahrgänge 1881-1900''. Heinrich Fuchs, Selbstverl., 1977 * Pnina Rosenberg, ''Images and Reflections: Women in the Art of the Holocaust'' (exhibition catalogue) Israel: Beit Lohamei Haghetaot, Spring 2002 * Catherine Stodolsky, ''Die gebürtige Pragerin Malvina Schalek''
Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente 10 (2003)
145-161.

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schalek, Malva 1882 births 1944 deaths Artists from Prague Czech Jews who died in the Holocaust Czech people who died in Auschwitz concentration camp Jewish painters Czech painters Czech women painters Theresienstadt Ghetto prisoners Czechoslovak civilians killed in World War II 20th-century Czech women artists Jewish women artists