Helga weissova biography

Czech artist and Holocaust survivor (b. 1929)

Helga Hošková-Weissová, also Helga Weiss, (born 10 November 1929) is a Czech artist, and a Holocaust survivor. She is known for her drawings that depict life at Terezín and her diary, which was published in 2013.

Biography

Helga Hošková-Weissová was born on 10 November 1929 in Prague-Libeň to an assimilated Jewish family. Her mother, Irena Fuchsova, was a seamstress and her father, Otto Weiss, worked at the state bank in Prague. She was raised in Prague, and shortly after her twelfth birthday on 10 December 1941, she and her parents were deported to the Terezín ghetto. Although they were separated in the camp, it was somewhat possible to see each other and exchange clandestine notes. It is estimated that 15,000 children (younger than 16) were deported to Terezín. Fewer than 100 of the Terezín children deported to Auschwitz survived.

Life at Terezín

Using her gift for painting and drawing, while at Terezín, Helga wrote a diary that included images from her life in the camp, which survived the war. Her father said to her in December 1941, "draw what you see," she did exactly that. She was held captive in what was called the Girl's Home in room twenty four. Her drawings are a testimony of what everyday life was like for Jews in Terezín.

Deportation to Auschwitz

In October 1944 at the age of 15, she and her mother were deported to Auschwitz. Whenever new victims a

Her father, Otto Weiss (1898–1944), came from Pardubice and became a bank clerk in Prague. Helga’s mother Irena (1906–1990), neé Fuchsová, was a seamstress. She was born in Prague and attended the Smíchov Synagogue. In the fourth grade, when Helga was ten, she was expelled from school along with the other Jewish children on ground of race. For some time she attended tutorials for children in private apartments that were organized by the Jewish community, as well as doing her own studying and reading. Her father paid great attention to her education, promoting her interest in art and literature. Like many others, Helga began a diary during the period of forced isolation; in it she commented on the increasing amount of anti-Jewish bans that were affecting the everyday life of the whole family. One month after her 12th birthday, on 7 December 1941, Helga and her parents were put on one of the first transports to Terezín. Along with various necessities, she brought her diary, crayons, watercolours and a sketch pad with her in her luggage. After arriving in Terezín, the family was separated. Helga and her mother were placed in the Dresden Barracks along with the other women; her father lived in the Sudeten Barracks, later in the Magdeburg Barracks. It was to be seven months before the family met again – in July 1942. Helga then moved into Girls’ Home L 410 on the square next to the church, where she lived with girls of the same age in Room 24.

“DRAW WHAT YOU SEE!”

Helga spent almost three years in the Terezín ghetto. In her free moments, she continued her diary and drawings. Shortly after arriving, Helga sent her first Terezín drawing – of children building a snowman – to her father in the Sudeten Barracks. On the basis of her father’s advice – “Draw what you see!” – she began to depict life in the Terezín ghetto. In total, she made more than a hundred drawings, which show

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