Students were able to catch a glimpse into the real life experiences of artist and Holocaust survivor Helga Weissová-Hosková, who was deported and imprisoned in a ghetto and transit camp in Terezin, Czechoslovakia.
From November 1 to November 18, the “A Child in Terezin: Witness to the Holocaust” exhibit was displayed at Reeves Memorial Library. The exhibit featured drawings and paintings that Weissová-Hosková created at age 12 while in Theresienstadt, the transit camp.
By Bethany Merryman
Contributor
Students were able to catch a glimpse into the real life experiences of artist and Holocaust survivor Helga Weissová-Hosková, who was deported and imprisoned in a ghetto and transit camp in Terezin, Czechoslovakia.
From November 1 to November 18, the “A Child in Terezin: Witness to the Holocaust” exhibit was displayed at Reeves Memorial Library. The exhibit featured drawings and paintings that Weissová-Hosková created at age 12 while in Theresienstadt, the transit camp.
“‘Draw what you see,’ was my father’s response, when I managed to smuggle to the man’s barracks the drawing of children building a snowman,” said Weissová-Hosková in a pamphlet provided at the art show. According to Weissová-Hosková the snowman picture was actually her last genuine drawing as a child.
“What struck me the most and what was the most memorable thing about this exhibit is the fact that it presents the Holocaust through the eyes of a 12-year-old girl,” said Jessica Pilewski, a sophomore.
“It is not merely another written account of the horrors that went on at concentration camps. It is a visual interpretation of the day-to-day atrocities that she had to go through just to survive,” said Pilewski.
“The picture featuring the blind traveling to work caught my attention because it made the reality of the situation sink in,” said Kali Sarver, a sophomore.
“The pictures definitely showed the Holocaust as I visualized it, but some pictures, like the one with the snowman, made the people seem more real to me,” said Sarver.
Sophomore Marc Vlainich said that the transition of time in the pictures was most interesting.
“There was a picture of children building a snowman, then later on, there were drawings of despair and the horror of the camp,” Vlainich said.
“This exhibit was meaningful for me because it depicted in images what too many of us only hear about in words,” said Sarver.
Weissová-Hosková’s firsthand account was sponsored in memory of Laura Sudimack Ridge, mother of former Pa. governor Tom Ridge, and the entire Sudimack family.