During the Holocaust, while incarcerated in ghettos and camps, living in hiding or on the run, many Jews attempted to maintain the artistic and cultural activities that had existed before the war. In order to sketch and paint their fellow Jews, they obtained paint, charcoal and pencils, sometimes at mortal risk, and often in exchange for their daily rations; they fashioned objects, games and tools; many wrote diaries documenting their daily lives. The diaries of the Judenrat heads and the archives written in the ghettos also documented artistic and cultural life.
![Kovno, Lithuania, A performance of the ghetto orchestra](https://www.yadvashem.org/sites/default/files/styles/main_image_1block/public/75GO5_.jpg?itok=bJSSXLbz)
Yad Vashem Photo Archives 813/3
![Kovno, Lithuania, A performance of the ghetto orchestra](https://www.yadvashem.org/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/75GO5_.jpg?itok=bRIikOqV)
Excerpt from: Warsaw Ghetto - Culture Without Walls
Directed By: Noemi Schory
Producers: Liat Benhabib, Noemi Schory, Liran Atzmor
Production Company: Belfilms Ltd.
![Marcel Reich-Ranicki: Cultural Activity in the Warsaw Ghetto](https://img.youtube.com/vi/mVW35AAb214/0.jpg)
![Samuel Bak, Artist, USA: Icons of Loss- The Image of the Warsaw Boy in the Art of Samuel Bak [24:01 min]](https://img.youtube.com/vi/-zW6XIek2qw/0.jpg)
![The Vilna ghetto choir and conductor Wolf Durmashkin, who was murdered in the Klooga camp, Estonia.](https://www.yadvashem.org/sites/default/files/styles/main_image_1block/public/75GO4_.jpg?itok=U-QeGyg6)
Yad Vashem Photo Archives 75GO4
![The Vilna ghetto choir and conductor Wolf Durmashkin, who was murdered in the Klooga camp, Estonia.](https://www.yadvashem.org/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/75GO4_.jpg?itok=lqtIwGye)
![Members of “The Front of the Wilderness Generation” dance in a circle. Lodz Ghetto, 1941](https://www.yadvashem.org/sites/default/files/styles/main_image_1block/public/4062_247.jpg?itok=lml0SCwx)
Yad Vashem Photo Archives 4062/247
![Members of “The Front of the Wilderness Generation” dance in a circle. Lodz Ghetto, 1941](https://www.yadvashem.org/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/4062_247.jpg?itok=ruil4ACp)
![Westerbork, Holland 1943 - Musicians in a play in the camp](https://www.yadvashem.org/sites/default/files/styles/main_image_1block/public/294_22.jpg?itok=EHmwvwOY)
Yad Vashem Photo Archives 294/22
![Westerbork, Holland 1943 - Musicians in a play in the camp](https://www.yadvashem.org/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/294_22.jpg?itok=-9sxBYgF)
![Warsaw ghetto - a theatre presentation](https://www.yadvashem.org/sites/default/files/styles/main_image_1block/public/1605_92.jpg?itok=7UOo5H-D)
Yad Vashem Photo Archives 294/22
![Warsaw ghetto - a theatre presentation](https://www.yadvashem.org/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/1605_92.jpg?itok=xkaX-jTz)