In the 1920s, Ostrava-born David Friedmann was famous for his portraits of Berlin Philharmonic musicians. With the Nazi rise to power in 1933, Friedmann’s artistic career came to an abrupt end and in 1938 he fled Berlin to Prague. He was deported in 1941 to the Lodz Ghetto in Poland, and eventually to Auschwitz. His wife and daughter perished, but he found a lifeline in his artistic abilities, painting portraits of SS officers who recognized his gifts. After his liberation in 1945, Friedmann lived in Czechoslovakia before fleeing the Communists to Israel, and later immigrated to the United States, where he died in 1980. His daughter, Miriam Friedman Morris, was determined to retrieve as much of her father’s work as possible. Her efforts have resulted in a new exhibit, “Giving Music a Face: David Friedmann’s Lost Musician Portraits from the 1920s.” Click here to read more about the exhibit and David Friedmann’s remarkable life. Click here to listen to Ms. Morris’s interview with New York Public Radio on the Deutsches Haus NYU exhibition.
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