UTW 44

Kamil Hahn of Telč, Czechoslovakia

Art: 2000-2002
Size: 48 in. H x 36 W [121.9 x 91.4 cm]; unframed

Three portraits of Hahn were drawn in ink & gouache w/ stitching, each on separate sheets, each approximately 8 inches x 12 inches.

My portraits of Hahn were drawn from a photo given to me by late Austrian Jewish refugee Alex Schwarz, who lived in Seattle for many years.
[see Other Holocaust Art, 1990's.
Alex Schwarz was portrayed in a linocut - also see
UTW 48: Italian Jewish resistance hero Eugenio Curiel…]

After his wife Gertrude died in Seattle around 1997 (she had been a kindertransport survivor from Vienna to England) Schwarz moved back to Vienna after 60 years. I visited him in  Vienna, Oct. 1999, on my way to my first teaching trip to Israel. In his apartment-flat in Vienna I saw a photo of his first cousin, Kamil Hahn, of Telc, Czechoslovakia.

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Kamil Hahn was born December 24, 1921; he was Czech Jewish. His last residence before deportation: Telč. According to the website https://www.holocaust.cz, he was first sent to the town of Třebíč, where I assume he was imprisoned in the Jewish ghetto. From there he was sent on transport no. 652, May 18, 1942, to the Nazi concentration-death camp at Terezin [aka Theresienstadt]. On Sept. 1, 1942 he was sent on transport 363 from Terezin to a Nazi concentration-death camp, Jägala, near the Raasiku railway station in Estonia, where he was murdered.

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Included in the imagery around the portraits are interpretative drawings of an early 20th century Viennese watch and a 1920’s Vienna trolley ticket. The trolley ticket was inspired by photo plate 403, page 204, in the book And I Still See Their Faces – Images of Polish Jews, Fotografia Zydów Polskich, – I ciᾳgle widzę ich twarze (pub. by Fundacja Shalom).