Elsa Pollak
Born1911 (1911)
Markušovce, Austria-Hungary
Died2006 (aged 94–95)
Herzliya, Israel
Known forStatues portraying the Holocaust
Notable workThe Pit, Auschwitz 5170
Awards1992 Sussman Prize for Artists Depicting the Holocaust, Yad Vashem

Elsa Pollak (1911 - 2006) was an Israeli sculptor and an Holocaust survivor, born in Slovakia. She is known for depicting the victims of the Holocaust in her art.[1]

Life

Pollak was born in the village of Markušovce.In 1944, she was deported to Auschwitz along with her entire family and assigned the number 5170. She was the only survivor, being liberated from the labor camp of Lenzing, Austria after having partaken in the Death March from Auschwitz.[1]

After the end of the World War II, Elsa studied sculpture in Vienna along with the sculptor and painter Kurt Goebel. In 1962, she emigrated to Israel and settled in Herzliya. In 1991, she received the Sussman Prize for Artists Depicting the Holocaust awarded by the Yad Vashem.[2]

Works

Pollak co-authored The Pit memorial, along with a Belarus artist Leonid Levin located at the site where Nazi forces shot about 5,000 Jewish residents of the nearby Minsk Ghetto.[3]

Her sculpture exhibition Elsa Pollak: Auschwitz 5170, named after her prisoner number in Auschwitz is one of the two permanent exhibitions displayed at the Ghetto Fighters' House in Israel.[4]

In her art, she drew from her own experience at the Auschwitz concentration camp, in her own words: "Man created these horrors, but did not invent a language in which to describe them. The memories stayed alive and urged me on without respite. And thus I arrived at sculpture."[5]

References

  1. 1 2 Brutin, Batya (6 December 2021). Etched in Flesh and Soul: The Auschwitz Number in Art. De Gruyter. p. 117. doi:10.1515/9783110739961. ISBN 978-3-11-073996-1. S2CID 245101291.
  2. ↑ "Elsa Pollak". museum.imj.org.il. Information Center for Israeli Art. Retrieved 1 March 2023.
  3. ↑ Bartash, Volha (1 April 2017). "Pioneers and Partisans: An Oral History of Nazi Genocide in Belorussia. By Anika Walke". The Oral History Review. 44 (1): 133–136. doi:10.1093/ohr/ohw085. ISSN 0094-0798. Retrieved 1 March 2023.
  4. ↑ "Ghetto Fighters' House". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 1 March 2023.
  5. ↑ Milton, Sybil; Nowinski, Ira (5 February 2018). In Fitting Memory: The Art and Politics of Holocaust Memorials. Wayne State University Press. p. 123.
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