Details

Object type

ink drawing

Title

Girl with yellow star

Artist/Maker

Marianne Grant maker

Culture/School

Czech

Place Associated

Czech Republic, Terezin (place depicted)

Date

1942-1943

Materials

ink on paper

Dimensions

overall: 317 mm x 204 mm

Description

A woman stands with sorrowful, downcast eyes, hands in the pockets of a coat onto which a Star of David badge has been sewn. The cross in the lower section was probably intended to situate the figure in space. Reinhard Heydrich, Chief of Reich Security and one of the principal figures behind the ‘Final Solution’, ordered that from 1 September 1941 all Jews over the age of six in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia must wear a yellow Star of David badge with the word Jude on the left side of their clothing. A series of restrictions and antisemitic laws had gradually pushed Jewish citizens to the margins of society – they were not allowed to practice certain professions, own property, use sports facilities and libraries, visit restaurants and parks, attend the cinema and theatre, be treated in non-Jewish hospitals and care homes – but this was one of the most significant signs of their segregation. It was part of the Nazis’ plan to humiliate and control the Jewish population and better facilitate their deportation and ultimate destruction.

Paper was precious and Marianne used this single sheet to make three separate head and figure studies. The head of a man on the other side of the paper bears a close resemblance to Marianne’s friend Petr Erben (1921–2017) and the female head to Marianne herself. Petr arrived in Theresienstadt concentration camp-ghetto on 30 September 1942. There he became a youth leader like Marianne. It was with Petr that Marianne entrusted her drawings when she followed her mother on the cattle trucks to Auschwitz-Birkenau in December 1943. He ensured that they were kept safe with another friend when he was deported to Auschwitz on 28 September 1944 so that Marianne was later reunited with them in Prague. From Auschwitz Petr was sent to Mauthausen in January 1945 and from there to Gusen, a sub-camp of Mauthausen, where he was liberated on 5 May 1945. After the war he lived in Prague and kept up correspondence with Marianne, helping her to recover some of the belongings she had stored with relatives and friends before deportation. In 1948, Peter and his fiancée Eva (neé Lövidtová, b. 1930) emigrated from Czechoslovakia to Israel, where they lived in Ashkelon and were closely involved in many Holocaust awareness initiatives.

Credit Line/Donor

The Marianne Grant Holocaust artworks collection was purchased in 2004 with grant aid assistance from The Heritage Lottery Fund, The National Art Collections Fund and the National Fund for Acquisitions.

Collection

Marianne Grant Holocaust Artworks Collection

ID Number

PP.2005.38.21

Location

In storage