Friedl and the Children of Theresienstadt

Can art save? What is its purpose in the face of inevitable catastrophe? Viennese artist Friedl Dicker-Brandeis (1898–1944), who ended up in the Theresienstadt ghetto in 1942, engaged in drawing with the deported children there, doomed to die. After all, prisoners were sent from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz. Most of Friedl's young students perished in the Holocaust. But together with her, they painted life, finding freedom and hope in creativity. Friedl managed to collect, annotate, and hide 5,000 children's drawings, many of which are stored in the Jewish Museum in Prague. Friedl preserved the memory of hundreds of exterminated children, and her method became the basis for modern art therapy.