Carol Deutsch, a Jewish painter, was born in 1894 in Antwerp, Belgium. After the Nazi conquest of Belgium, the local Jewish population was included in the destruction of the Jewish people - the Shoah. Deutsch and his family hid in Brussels under an assumed name. During the years 1941-42, Deutsch painted a series of 99 illustrations of the Bible and a wooden box to hold them, as a birthday present for his two-year-old daughter, Ingrid. On September 3, 1943, Deutsch was arrested by the SS. His wife tried to rescue him by going to the police, but, as a result, she herself was arrested. Fela and Carol Deutsch were deported in September 1943 from Mechelen to Auschwitz, where Fela was murdered. Carol was transferred to Sachsenhausen and from there to Buchenwald, where he died in December 1944.
Carol Deutsch’s daughter Ingrid survived the war with her grandmother, Regina Braunstein, hiding with a Catholic family in North-Eastern Belgium.
When Ingrid and Regina returned home to Antwerp in early 1945, they discovered that the Nazis had confiscated their furniture and valuables. However, miraculously one item was left untouched: a large, meticulously crafted, wooden box adorned with a Star of David and a seven-branched menorah. Inside was a collection of biblical illustrations labored over by the artist Carol Deutsch between 1941 and 1942. Under the stressful conditions of curfew and persecution, the artist had produced an oeuvre that proudly affirmed his Jewish identity-a patrimony he devoted to his young daughter. The 99 strikingly painted gouaches depict the biblical scenes with a unique iconography and palette, reflecting the artist’s boldness and originality. The illustrations combine Art Nouveau ornamentation with stylistic influences of the Bezalel School, echoes of Deutsch’s 1936 visit to the Land of Israel.
The biblical illustrations Deutsch bequeathed to his daughter exhibit exceptional vitality and constitute a stalwart expression of defiance to everything for which the Nazis stood. This father’s intimate and intellectual bequest to his daughter, donated to and displayed at Yad Vashem’s Museum of Holocaust Art, is thus instilled in the collective legacy. Here, visitors can appreciate the illustrations’ artistic quality first hand and grasp the power of the Jewish spirit and tradition that inspired them..
Carol Deutsch’s Portfolio
In order to honor the memory of Carol Deutsch and pass on his legacy, Yad Vashem recently produced a replica of the artist’s biblical illustrations. Conceived as a collector’s item, the luxurious portfolio has been published in a limited edition, numbered from 1 to 500. Each portfolio is comprised of an ornamented box containing one silk screen printed on Arches paper, 98 beautiful color prints faithful to the originals, and a booklet featuring the artist’s biography as well as explanatory notes on his style and iconography.
