i randomly bought a book, a dialogless comic book, by
sergio aragonés at a book sale last week. somehow upon reading it i couldn't help thinking back to an exhibition i happened to visit
when i was in berlin. it was
a drawings exhibition of bedřich fritta, a czech-jewish artist, in theresienstadt ghetto. it was the first time i heard about theresienstadt, a concentration camp north of prague where the jews were interned before being deported to death camps. the international public was supposed to believe that this was just a normal small town. the artists detained here had to produce propaganda material to reinforce that illusion. but in secret drawings they captured the hardship of actual life in the ghetto.
i still remember to this day how his drawings struck me emotionally. in addition to the whole architecture and the things that were thought provoking in the jewish museum, it is incredible how powerful art could be as a medium for people to grasp an idea of what was once happened in human history.
