אדולך פרנק

Adolf Frankl (1903-1983), painter and Auschwitz survivor, born in Pressburg (then part of Austria-Hungary, now Bratislava, in Slovakia), the son of an interior designer. He studied at the school of Applied Arts in Pressburg and subsequently at the Technical University of Brno, Czech Republic, where he worked on a part time basis designing advertising posters and as a caricaturist.

In 1937 he established his own interior decoration business but in 1941 the company was expropriated (Aryanized) and he and his family were forced to live in a ghetto. In November 1944 he and his entire family were arrested and deported. His wife and two children succeeded in escaping from the transport while he continued to Auschwitz. He survived there until January 1945 when Auschwitz was evacuated and he joined a death march in the direction of Gleiwitz. He escaped to a forest and hid until liberated by the Soviet Army. April 1945 he made his way back to Bratislava where he was reunited with his family and reestablished his company. In 1950 he moved to Vienna, Austria, then to New York, USA, and finally to Germany.

It was only after the war that the full horror of what he had lived through began to trouble him in the form of recurrent nightmares. It was suggested that he paint as a way of working through his horrific experiences. The result was a series of pictures, painted in 1945 and later, which made up a cycle entitled Visions of the Inferno-Art Against Oblivion. A picture donated to Yad Vashem is entitled Distribution of food in Auschwitz-Birkenau. ‘Being an eye-witness, a sufferer myself,” wrote Frankl, “ I want to conjure the indescribable fear and the undeserved fate of millions of Jews, of other fellow prisoners, of children and of those unborn. In such moments, I am seized with righteous anger and with memories carved indelibly on my mind, I seek to capture them with my hands, to express them in such a way that this tragedy become a warning testimony to future generations. Through my paintings I have created a memorial for all nations of the world,” he concluded. “No one, regardless of religion or political convictions, should ever again suffer-such or similar- atrocities”.

Other paintings produced by him between 1930 and 1982 depict scenes from Jewish life, coffee houses, railway stations, courtrooms and auction houses.