Images(4)

Packet (Balik)

Not on view

Date1944-01-23

Dimensionsoverall: 5 3/4 in x 8 1/2 in

ClassificationsDrawing

Credit Linenone

Object number220.88

Object DescriptionPencil and ink on paper by Helga Weissova as a child. Depicts man carrying package on his shoulder, young girl visible at left, eyeing package enviously; figure with back only visible at right; portion of building in background. Packages sent to Terezin residents were opened and sometimes contents confiscated. The ghetto administration would issue "stamps" allowing inmates to receive packages. They would send these "stamps" to relatives and others outside ghetto who would use them to send packages back to them. The regular postal systems were bypassed. With help of Jewish organizations set up in Germany or elsewhere, packages had to be sent through this special system. Helga says her family received 10-15 packages over 3 years. Package in picture had been opened for inspection.

Collections

Documenting Nazi Ghettos

Keywords

Visual arts
Ghettos
Camps
Culture
Terezin

Notes"A limited number of parcels were permitted to be sent to Theresienstadt. They always contained essential food basics. The passers-by hungrily turned to look at the lucky person carrying a parcel." Quote from Helga Weissova about this drawing from the book "Zeichne, Was Du Siehst" page 106 - 107. At age 12, Helga Weissova (now Helga Weissova Hoskova) was deported from Prague, Czechoslovkia to the Terezin ghetto in 1941. From her barracks she sent her father a picture of a snowman; he wrote back, "Draw what you see." Until she was sent with her mother to Auschwitz in 1944, Helga drew pictures documenting her life in the ghetto. Facing deportation, she entrusted her pictures to an uncle, who them in a wall until Terezin was liberated. He returned to Prague, and found Helga, who with her mother had survived Auschwitz and a work detail in Germany. In her later years, Helga was an active artist and grandmother in Prague. Her works are also in the collections of the Prague Jewish Museum, and the Terezin Ghetto Museum, which she helped to create.

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