Yehuda Bacon in 1999
YEHUDA BACON
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Yehuda Bacon in 1999 |
Deportation to Theresienstadt
September 1942, at the age of thirteen, Bacon was deported along with his
parents and sister to Theresienstadt. There, he lived in L417, a children's home for ten- to fifteen-year-old
Czech boys where he helped produce the teenagers' underground weekly, Vedem
("We lead"). At Theresienstadt,
Bacon also studied art with Leo Haas, Otto Ungar, and Karel Fleischmann, Czech
Jewish artists incarcerated there.
Deportation to Auschwitz
December 17, 1943
Bacon, his parents, and sister were deported from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz-Birkenau,
where Bacon received prisoner number 168194. Initially, Bacon was placed in the Theresienstadt
family camp in sector BIIb, where families were permitted
to stay together and the children received some schooling from Madrichim (youth workers). Bacon
and his fellow young inmates used Hebrew codes to avoid censorship by inserting
the word moti (death) at the end of
postcards, so as to warn those at Theresienstadt about the fate of deportees
to Auschwitz. Bacon's own father suffered
such a horrific fate: He was sent to the gas chambers shortly after the liquidation
of the family camp on July 10-11, 1944.
Work Assignments at Auschwitz
Mid-July 1944,
Bacon together with 89 other children from the Theresienstadt family camp was
transferred to the men's camp (Männerlager,
sector BIId), where he
was housed in barrack 13, which was also the quarters for the penal detachment
(Strafkommando). July 1944
to January 1945, he worked on transport detail (Rollwagenkommando) at Birkenau. As
he later testified at the 1961 Adolf Eichmann trial in Jerusalem and 1964 Auschwitz
trial in Frankfurt, transport detail meant groups of 20 children dragging carts
that transported items such as clothing and wood to the different sections of
Birkenau. These included the crematoria
where, as Bacon explained, "we fetched ashes and spread them across the
path we took."
Evacuation from Auschwitz
January 18, 1945,
Bacon was evacuated west by forced march from Auschwitz-Birkenau to Blechhammer, a 36-hour journey. As he later described it: "Many attempted to hide to await
liberation by the Russians, others were discovered and shot." This Death March traveled via Kattowitz,
where some prisoners were killed in an air raid; Ostrau, where they received
bread and coffee from a Czech welfare organization; Prague; and Budweis to Mauthausen,
where they arrived on January 30, 1945. February
to April 1945, Bacon remained at Mauthausen concentration camp, where he was
assigned prisoner number 123583. April
15, 1945 or shortly thereafter, Bacon and others were evacuated on foot towards
Gunskirchen camp, where tree bark and grass were food.
Liberation and After
Bacon was liberated
from Gunskirchen on May 5, 1945. After recovering from typhus, contracted following
liberation, Bacon in June 1945 produced several drawings of the Auschwitz-Birkenau
crematoria numbers 2, 3 and 4, disrobing room, and gas chambers, that were subsequently
entered into evidence at the 1961 Eichmann trial as prosecution exhibits T1318-1325.
He never depicted liberation because, as he stated in a June 1983 interview,
"it had been a tragedy." After the conclusion of the war, Bacon returned
to Prague and then, in the spring of 1946, emigrated to Israel, where he studied
and later taught at the Bezalel Art School in Jerusalem.
Bibliography:
Adler,
H.G. Theresienstadt 1941-1945: Das Antlitz einer Zwangsgemeinschaft. Tübingen,
1960.
Adler,
H.G. "Yehuda Bacon," Mit der Ziehharmonika: Zeitschrift für Literatur
des Exils und des Widerstands 10, no. 2 (July 1993), 4-6.
Archives
at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim.
Bacon,
Yehuda. "Kunst und ihre Bedeutung,"
Mit der Ziehharmonika: Zeitschrift für
Literatur des Exils und des Widerstands 10, no. 2 (July 1993), 2-3.
Fritz
Bauer Institute, Frankfurt: transcript of the 106th session of the Auschwitz
trial 4 Ks 2/63, v. 85, containing Bacon's testimony on October 30, 1964, 4Ks
2/63 v. 85 and deposition in Jerusalem, 16456-58.
Langbein,
Hermann. Der Auschwitz-Prozeß: Eine Dokumentation. Frankfurt am Main, 1995.
Milton,
Sybil and Janet Blatter. Art of the Holocaust. New York, 1981.
The Trial of Adolf Eichmann:
Record of Proceedings in the District Court of Jerusalem. Jerusalem: Trust for the Publication of the Proceedings of the Eichmann
Trial, in co-operation with the Israel State Archives and Yad Vashem, the Holocaust
Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, 1993, volume 3.