David Goychman
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Background
Goychman was the
youngest of three sons of Rabbi Wolf Goychman, a grain merchant. Goychman received
both general and Jewish education, including instruction in Yiddish and Hebrew
language and culture. His brother Abraham
was killed in battle while fighting for the French Army in the First World War.
David and his brother Eliezer were victims of a pogrom, in which David
suffered a head wound and Eliezer was killed before his eyes.
1919, he went to Palestine, where he began to paint. Three years later, he moved to Paris to study
at the Academy of Art. To earn his living,
he touched up portrait photographs, while for enjoyment he painted portraits
and landscapes. 1930s, when the situation
of Jews in Europe was deteriorating, Goychman's sister, who had immigrated to
the United States, invited him to join her but he did not want to leave Paris.
Arrest and Internment at Compičgne
June 27, 1941, after Germany declared war on Russia, Goychman was arrested
in his house in Villeban, in the Vallče des Chevreuse near Paris, as a citizen
of the enemy state of Russia. He was then sent to and interned at Compičgne,
where he continued to paint and participated, along with other artist internees,
in an exhibition held at the camp.
Transfer to Drancy
and Deportation to Auschwitz
September 11, 1942, Goychman was transferred to Drancy and three days later,
sent in deportation no. 32 to Auschwitz, from where he never returned.
None of Goychman's Compičgne paintings are known to have survived, but
the Ghetto Fighters' House art collection contains some of his prewar paintings
as well as portraits of Goychman made at Compičgne by fellow inmate artists
Jacques Gotko and Isis Kischka.
Bibliography:
Fenster, Hirsh.
Undzere Farpainikte Kinstler (Nos artistes martyrs). Paris, 1951.
Klarsfeld,
Serge. Memorial to the Jews Deported from France, 1942-1944: Documentation of
the Deportation of the Victims of the Final Solution in France. New York, 1983.