Si Lewen (8 November 1918,

Lubin Lubin (; german: Lüben, szl, Lubin) is a city in Lower Silesian Voivodeship in south-western Poland. It is the administrative seat of Lubin County, and also of the rural district called Gmina Lubin, although it is not part of the territory of ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

– 25 July 2016) was a Polish-American painter and member of the

Ritchie Boys The Ritchie Boys were a special collection of soldiers, with sizable numbers of German-Austrian recruits, of Military Intelligence Service officers and enlisted men of World War II who were trained at Camp Ritchie in Washington County, Maryland. ...

, a unit of the United States Army during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Lewen was born in 1918 into a Polish-Jewish family, who moved to Berlin in 1920. He received drawing lessons from

Max Adron Max or MAX may refer to: Animals * Max (dog) (1983–2013), at one time purported to be the world's oldest living dog * Max (English Springer Spaniel), the first pet dog to win the PDSA Order of Merit (animal equivalent of OBE) * Max (gorilla) ( ...

, a pupil of

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...

and

Klaus Richter Klaus is a German, Dutch and Scandinavian given name and surname. It originated as a short form of Nikolaus, a German form of the Greek given name Nicholas. Notable persons whose family name is Klaus *Billy Klaus (1928–2006), American basebal ...

. After

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

came to power in 1933, Lewen and his older brother emigrated to France to prepare for the departure of the entire family to Palestine. In 1935, the family unexpectedly received visas to the United States. There, in New York City, Lewen attended an art school. He volunteered for the United States Army in 1942 and, because of his knowledge of German, became a member of the

. On reaching

Buchenwald Concentration Camp Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...

, he had a breakdown. What he saw inspired his later artwork about the war. Art Spiegelman, author of ''

Maus ''Maus'' is a graphic novel by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman, serialized from 1980 to 1991. It depicts Spiegelman interviewing his father about his experiences as a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. The work employs postmodern technique ...

'', published ''Lewen's Parade: An Artist's Odyssey'' in 2016, an "expanded "director's cut" version of images Lewen had created from 1950 and published in 1957 under the title ''Parade''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lewen, Si American painters American people of Polish-Jewish descent Ritchie Boys 1918 births 2016 deaths