MAKA

This project Closest to the Truth: Terezin Cartoonist Erich Lichtblau-Leskly is dedicated to one of the artists – prisoners in the Holocaust. During World War Two, while imprisoned, together with his wife Elsa in ghetto Terezin (Theresienstadt) Erich Lichtblau-Leskly created a secret series of cartoons which could cost him life if caught by the Nazis.

The key idea of the project is cultural and moral resistance of the Jewish people in extreme conditions, in particular, art as one of the strongest survival tools in the Shoa.

The cartoons made by Erich Lichtblau-Leskly in 1942 – 1945 constitute an impressive satirical chronicle of life in the ghetto. In his drawings, named by himself ‘tragicomic,’ one can find different scenes and episodes from everyday ghetto life. His cartoons are undoubtedly a unique and important testimony produced by a gifted, perceptive and socially engaged person.

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Curator: Elena Makarov

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2010-2012