Friedl Dicker-Brandeis

"Today only one thing seems important - to rouse the desire towards creative work...and to teach how to overcome difficulties that are insignificant in comparison with the goal to which you are striving" (Dicker-Brandeis). When Friedl composed this quote in a letter to her friend over 70 years ago, little did she know that she would live by these exact words in order to sustain hope in the lives of children during the Holocaust. Friedl Dicker-Brandeis always seemed to have a strong passion for art, even at a young age. She was born into a poor Jewish family on July 30, 1898, in Vienna, Austria, and died on October 6, 1944, in the Terezin gas chambers. Throughout most of her life, Dicker-Brandeis lived in poverty; however, she did not allow her impoverished lifestyle to restrain her from pursuing the one thing she loved the most: art. At sixteen years of age, Friedl's passion for art became more evident as she made the decision to attend Bauhaus, a famous art school in Germany. Years later, Adolf Hitler rose to power, marking the start of the Holocaust, a period in which over six million Jews were tortured and prosecuted. On December 14, 1942, Friedl and her husband, Pavel, were discovered by the Nazis and immediately transported to the Terezin concentration camp. There, she, her husband, and thousands of other Jewish children suffered from malnutrition, diseases, and physical torture. In the midst of the children's depression and misery, Friedl strove towards a goal that she knew could be achieved through her art skills: teaching the children art as therapy to help them cope with their grief. Unlike the other adults during the Holocaust, Friedl spent her time reaching out to others in need of guidance and support. Friedl Dicker-Brandeis may have been born into a poor family, but that did not stop her from showing her heroism through her dedication towards helping children, perseverance during hardships, and selfless acts of kindness.

Instead of wasting her time grieving over what her once peaceful life had become, Friedl pushed aside her suffering to dedicate her time towards the children in search of hope. After spending many days thinking while at the concentration camp, Friedl finally discovered a way to aid the children at Terezin: "Realizing that art could be a used to help children deal with their feelings of loss, sorrow fear, and uncertainty, Friedl set about teaching over 600 children in Terezin, illegally, with.enormous enthusiasm" (Dicker-Brandeis). Even though it would take a great deal of time and effort to set up secret art classes for over six hundred children, Friedl never stopped to think twice when she found a way to help these miserable children. What mattered to Friedl was not the amount of time that would have to be spent organizing these classes, but the ability to allow these children to cope with their feelings as they expressed themselves through art. In addition, Friedl took advantage of the art skills she developed while in Bauhaus to turn art into a valuable tool: "As they waited for early death, she taught them to draw. She treated this as a distraction. She spent hours grading their work in several areas (dimension, color) and provided rigorous instruction" (Salamon). Friedl very well knew that neither she nor the children were going to make it out of the concentration camp alive when the Holocaust ended. Instead of trying to escape from the camp to stay alive, Friedl dedicated her time to distract the children from their inevitable death; she organized art lessons that allowed them to use art as a tool to help them escape into a world away from their surrounding hardships. Although it took away hours of Friedl's time, acting as if she was teaching in an actual classroom distracted the children from their hostile environment, helping them calm down and find hope within themselves. Through the many hours spent teaching at the Terezin concentration camp, Dicker-Brandeis was able to provide the children with hope that could only be found in art.

During the Holocaust, any form of hope was torn from the lives of the Jews as they were transported to concentration camps, tortured, and persecuted; however, Friedl Dicker-Brandeis persevered through these hardships. Years before she was sent to Terezin, Friedl dedicated her life to pursue one of creativity and art; even though life at the concentration camp made it nearly impossible for her to pursue her dream, she did not give up: "Even under the harsh conditions at the Holocaust concentration camp, Terezin, she persisted in pursuing her goal - 'to rouse the desire towards creative work'" (Dicker-Brandeis). Dicker-Brandeis did not let the misery and hostility of her environment prevent her from achieving her ultimate purpose in life. No matter how much her life had changed since she first declared creativity and art to be her priorities in life, she endured the dramatic changes she experienced and held onto her goal. Despite the obstacles Friedl faced at Terezin, she never let anything stop her from teaching art to the children: "The Nazis only permitted the Jewish children to study music and crafts...so Friedl and the other tutors gave art lessons in secret. If they were discovered, they would be sent straight to the gas chambers" (Robin 12). Even as a death threat hung above her head, she did not give up on providing the children with as normal a life as possible; she did not allow the possibility of losing her life scare her away from working towards her goals. Friedl pushed herself to overcome the fear of losing her life, and persisted towards her top priorities: promoting creativity and using art to help children in need. Instead of allowing herself to be shaped by her environment, she took a stand and shaped the environment itself.