In a remarkable deed of original scholarly research and detailed detective work, Anne Weise recreates sketches of a lost life - of one of the millions of forgotten souls whose lives came to a violent end in the Holocaust. Her focus is Alfred Bergel (1902-1944), an artist and teacher from Vienna who was a close associate of Karl Koenig - the founder of the Camphill Movement for people with special needs - who wrote of Bergel in his youthful diaries as his best friend 'Fredi'. After the annexation of Austria, Alfred Bergel found himself unable to escape the horror of the National Socialist regime. Subsequently, in 1942 he was deported to the Theresienstadt camp. Imprisoned there, he produced numerous artistic works of the inmates of the ghetto and taught drawing, art history and art appreciation - sometimes in collaboration with the Bauhaus artist Friedl Dicker-Brandeis. During this period, he was also forced by the Nazis to produce forgeries of classic art works. One of the central figures of cultural life in the Theresienstadt ghetto, Bergel was eventually transported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944 where, tragically, he was murdered. His name and his work are largely forgotten today, even amongst Holocaust researchers, but Weise succeeds in honouring the life of the Jewish artist by lovingly piecing together his biography, based on numerous personal testimonies by friends and contemporaries and supplemented with documents and many dozens of photos and colour reproductions of Bergel's artistic works. This invaluable recreation of a life provides insight not only into the desperate plight of a single individual, but also illustrates the human will and determination to survive in the context of one of the darkest periods of recent history.
ANNE WEISE was born in Schwerin, Germany, and grew up in the Ore Mountains. She majored in cultural studies and art history at the Humboldt University in Berlin, where she received her doctorate in 1995. After working in Camphill institutions in the US, she has been jointly responsible since 2011 for the Karl Koenig Archive in Aberdeen, Scotland, and for research and archiving. She also works as an editor at the Rudolf Steiner Archiv in Dornach, Switzerland, and is the author of Marianne Brandt, Wegbereiterin des Produktdesign, a study of the German Bauhaus artist.
The Holocaust: Looking Back Seventy Years by Robert O. Fisch - Looking for the Human Being-A Preface - Short Biography of Alfred Bergel - 1. Young Friends-A Diary Collage - Childhood and Youth in Olmu tz and Vienna - Summer Respite for Bergels and Koenigs-Friendship between the Families - 'And we became friends'-Fredi and Karl - 'Moonlight Party'-A Summer in Kierling - 'He won't let on about it'-First love - 'Too good to be true'-Wistful Farewell and War Chaos - Kierling, and once again Kierling - 'Wurstelprater'-Theatrical Experiences - 'Become like this man, so happy and great'-A Fairy Tale for the Friend - Poet and mentor-the father Arnold Bergel - 'I saw the creative works of the greatest painters'-Encounters with the visual arts - Another Class Photo-a Talent for Portraits - 'The Different, the Good, and the Beautiful'-Quarrels - 'Man of Skills'-the Artist - 'We are just too connected with each other through Karma' - Rise of Anti-Semitism in Vienna - 2. The Anschluss. Annexation-Repression and Defamation in Vienna - The Destiny of the Childhood-Friends - Banned from Employment, March 1938 - Exit Visa and Capital Confiscation, May 1938 - Marked as Israel and Sara, August 1938 - Evictions, September 1938 - Kristallnacht, November 1938 - Escape of Sister Marianne to Palestine, June 1939 - Teacher in the Youth-Aliyah, October 1939-1942 - 3. Theresienstadt and Auschwitz - Bohemia-'The heart of Europe' - 'My number swung as if on a cow's neck'-Deportation - 'The idea of man'-cultural life for survival, nourishment and spiritual resistance - 'Subtleties like colour, harmony, balance, form and beauty'-Alfred Bergel as a teacher - 'Here is no photographer, then an artist is needed'-Alfred Bergel, the painter - Alfred Bergel-Member of the Sonderwerkstatt - 'Ordering' art - Eyewitness accounts from the painters' workshops - More research needs to be done - Beautification of Theresienstadt - From Vienna: a message of 'an outstanding loan debt' - 'An oasis to breathe'-Hugo Friedmann and the library - A slight movement with the thumb-Deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau - 4. Human dignity is inviolable - 'To serve and not to rule'-The destiny of Karl Koenig and the European cultural impulse - 'Love overcomes hatred'-Pay Attention to the Helpers - 5. Anthroposophical work in Theresienstadt - 6. Destinies of family members - Sophie Bergel / Arthur and Sali Bergel / Marianne and Hans Petersilka / Margarethe and Richard Winter / Fritz Bergel / Elsa, Oskar and Herta Baurose - Members of the Bergel family murdered in Auschwitz/Birkenau - The fate of Karl Koenig's extended family during the Holocaust - 7. A voice from then ... and today-Fred Terna - Notes - Further reading - List of artworks - Picture credits - Index of names
