SS Hund
drypoint and aquatint on paper
27 x 33.9
(lower right): LH
1988-23ix
@Leo Haas estate
Photo: Bridgeman images
In September 1942, Leo Haas was deported to the Terezin (Theresienstadt) ghetto, north of Prague. As an artist, Haas was assigned to the Technical Department to illustrate propaganda material, which...
In September 1942, Leo Haas was deported to the Terezin (Theresienstadt) ghetto, north of Prague. As an artist, Haas was assigned to the Technical Department to illustrate propaganda material, which enabled him to secretly make a series of pictures showing what life in Theresienstadt was really like. He risked his life making these works, hiding the prints in walls and with the other inhabitants of Theresienstadt. After the war, Haas returned to Terezin, where he retrieved some 400 of his drawings. This etching depicts the march of Terezin inmates to be deported to a concentration camp. The long line of transportees includes a sorrowful nurse, a pain-stricken pregnant woman and a child, guarded by an SS hound. This powerful and haunting image is one of ten in the Ben Uri Collection printed after the war using the original plate.