Yehuda Bacon ( he, יהודה בקון; born July 28, 1929 in

Ostrava Ostrava (; pl, Ostrawa; german: Ostrau ) is a city in the north-east of the Czech Republic, and the capital of the Moravian-Silesian Region. It has about 280,000 inhabitants. It lies from the border with Poland, at the confluences of four riv ...

) is an Israeli artist who survived the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

Biography

Yehuda Bacon was born into a Hasidic (

Orthodox Jewish Orthodox Judaism is the collective term for the traditionalist and theologically conservative branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Written and Oral, as revealed by God to Moses on M ...

) family. In the fall of 1942, at the age of 13, Bacon was deported with his family from

to the

Ghetto Theresienstadt A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished t ...

, where he shared a room with George Brady. In Theresienstadt he played in the children's opera '' Brundibár''. In December 1943, he was deported to the concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he and other imprisoned children were used to bedazzle the

International Committee of the Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC; french: Comité international de la Croix-Rouge) is a humanitarian organization which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is also a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signato ...

in the so-called "family camp". In fact, the "Birkenau Boys" were used for transport work in the entire complex of Auschwitz II-Birkenau. In June 1944, Bacon saw his father murdered in the

gas chamber A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or other animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide. History ...

s. At this time, his mother and his sister Hanna were deported to the

Stutthof concentration camp Stutthof was a Nazi concentration camp established by Nazi Germany in a secluded, marshy, and wooded area near the village of Stutthof (now Sztutowo) 34 km (21 mi) east of the city of Danzig (Gdańsk) in the territory of the German- ...

, where they died a few weeks before its liberation. On January 18, 1945 Bacon was sent on the camp's

death march A death march is a forced march of prisoners of war or other captives or deportees in which individuals are left to die along the way. It is distinguished in this way from simple prisoner transport via foot march. Article 19 of the Geneva Conven ...

, which lasted three days and led him through the

Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with nearly 100 further subcamps located throughout Austria and southern Germa ...

to its subcamp Gunskirchen. In March, Bacon was sent on another death march to a subcamp of Mauthausen, Gunskirchen, in the woods. As he reports, there was no food, water or clothing. On May 5, 1945 Bacon was liberated by the

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

. Before the SS guards left the camp, they poisoned the rest of the food. After fleeing to a village, many inmates died from eating too much too suddenly, in amounts their bodies could no longer handle. Bacon and his friend Wolfie Adler (who later became an Israeli rabbi and published a book about his experiences) left the camp. US soldiers brought them to a hospital in the Austrian town Steyr. After his recovery, Bacon returned to

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

hoping to reunite with his mother and sisters. He lived in an orphanage not far from

in Štiřín, which was established by the Czech educator and humanist

Přemysl Pitter Přemysl Pitter (21 June 1895 – 15 February 1976) was a Czech humanist, pacifist, pedagogue, social worker and evangelical preacher. He founded Milíč House in Prague, during World War II supported Jewish families and after the end of the w ...

. The writer H.G. Adler was also a teacher there. Through Pitter and Adler, he found a way to live after the liberation. In 1946, Bacon

immigrated Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...

to Israel with the help of

Youth Aliyah Youth Aliyah (Hebrew: עלית הנוער, ''Aliyat Hano'ar'', German: Jugend-Alijah, Youth Immigration) is a Jewish organization that rescued thousands of Jewish children from the Nazis during the Third Reich. Youth Aliyah arranged for their r ...

. There he studied at

Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design ( he, בצלאל, אקדמיה לאמנות ועיצוב) is a public college of design and art located in Jerusalem. Established in 1906 by Jewish painter and sculptor Boris Schatz, Bezalel is Israel's oldes ...

. In 1959, he became a professor of graphic art and drawing at Bezalel. Yehuda Bacon lives with his wife Leah Bacon in

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

. He has two sons and a daughter by a former marriage to Josephine Bacon.

Art career

After liberation, Bacon decided to become an artist to process his experiences and try to describe what he lived through.Yehuda Bacon, Holocaust Survivor and Artist
/ref> As a survivor he feels a responsibility to tell his story and to make future generations aware of their responsibility in the present and future. He was among the first survivors of the

Shoah The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...

to set foot again on German soil. Bacon's drawings show details and sequences of what he saw in the concentration camps and scenes he drew as a teenager shortly after the liberation. His drawings served as evidence in trials against Nazi criminals (including the Eichmann trial in

and the

Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials The Frankfurt Auschwitz trials, known in German as ''der Auschwitz-Prozess'', or ''der zweite Auschwitz-Prozess,'' (the "second Auschwitz trial") was a series of trials running from 20 December 1963 to 19 August 1965, charging 22 defendants unde ...

) and were used in the litigation against

Holocaust denier Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements: * ...

David Irving David John Cawdell Irving (born 24 March 1938) is an English author and Holocaust denier who has written on the military and political history of World War II, with a focus on Nazi Germany. His works include '' The Destruction of Dresden'' (1 ...

, who challenges the existence of gas chambers in Auschwitz. His art is a kind of asynergistic interaction: on the one hand, Bacon processes the experiences of his childhood and youth in the concentration camps, on the other he is searching for a way of understanding through his art. Bacon was early part of interfaith dialogues and Israeli-Palestinian dialogue in the 1950s. His art is shown in several museums and collections around the world, among the Israel Museum and

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...

in Jerusalem, the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...

Washington D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...

, in the homes of

Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...

John D. Rockefeller John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American business magnate and philanthropist. He has been widely considered the wealthiest American of all time and the richest person in modern history. Rockefeller was ...

Martin Buber Martin Buber ( he, מרטין בובר; german: Martin Buber; yi, מארטין בובער; February 8, 1878 – June 13, 1965) was an Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism ...

and

Chaim Weizmann Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( he, חיים עזריאל ויצמן ', russian: Хаим Евзорович Вейцман, ''Khaim Evzorovich Veytsman''; 27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Russian-born biochemist, Zionist leader and Israe ...

as well as in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

Collections

, Jerusalem * Ghetto Fighters' House Museum, Western Galilee * Victoria and Albert Museum, London * British Museum, London * Imperial War Museum, London * Magnes Museum, Berkeley * Museum am Dom, Würzburg

Solo exhibitions

* Nora Gallery, Jerusalem (1954) * Whippmann Gallery, Johannesburg (1955) * Princeton University, Princeton (1973) * Lutheran Education Center, Munich (1978) * Portland City Hall, Portland, Oregon (1988) * SOCA Gallery, Auckland (1995) * Studio Visuri Osmo, Helsinki (1999) * Spectrum Gallery, Frankfurt (2004) * Museum am Dom, Würzburg (2008) * Czech Centre, Prague (2011)

Group exhibitions

* Henny Handler, London (1987) starring Naomi Blake * St. Paul's Church, Frankfurt (1999) with Dan Richter-Levin * Art Museum, Tel Aviv (1952) with Isidor Aschheim, Naftali Bezem, Nahum Gutman, Aviva Uri, et al. * 45e Exposition de la Maison des intellectuels, Paris (1962) * National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (1962) * Pratt Graphic Art Center, New York (1966) * Art Gallery, São Paulo, (1967) by Mordechai Ardon, Moshe Castel, Jacob Pins, Anna Ticho, Yigael Tumarkin, et al. * Gallery of Modern Art Rijeka, Ljublijana (1968) * Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris (1981) * Imperial War Museum, London (2001) * The Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York (2003) * Los Angeles Museum, California 2004 * Ben Uri Gallery, London (2008) - Israel and Art - 60 years through the eyes of Teddy Kolek

References

External links

Yehuda Bacon Webpage

Yehuda and Leah Bacon Fellowship (German)

Interview with his daughter, BBC journalist Hanna White

Yad Vashem website
Yehuda Bacon
in the

exhibitions, Jerusalem
Special Exhibition in Yad Vashem

Bezalel Academy Jerusalem

Bacon exhibition in the Museum am Dom Würzburg (German)

Art and Holocaust

Yehuda Bacon
at Memory of Nation site. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bacon, Yehuda 1929 births Living people Czech emigrants to Israel Czech Jews Israeli people of Czech-Jewish descent Theresienstadt Ghetto survivors Auschwitz concentration camp survivors 20th-century Israeli male artists 21st-century Israeli male artists Israeli illustrators Jewish Israeli artists Israeli Ashkenazi Jews People from Ostrava Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design alumni Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design faculty Czechoslovak emigrants to Mandatory Palestine Jewish concentration camp survivors Recipients of Medal of Merit (Czech Republic)