A YOUNG BOY, PETR GINZ
HOLOCAUST VICTIM
HIS DRAWING MADE HISTORY
By Ralph Harpuder
Two countries recently issued postage
stamps which were implicitly related to the Holocaust. The
German Post commemorated the Centennial Birthday of Felix
Nussbaum, a Jewish painter who died in Auschwitz
Concentration Camp. The Czech Postal Authority meanwhile
honoured on a stamp a young boy, Petr Ginz, who also
perished in Auschwitz. His drawing "Moon Landscape", was
carried into space on the ill-fated space shuttle, Columbia.
A separate article was already written on Felix Nussbaum, in
our last issue. On January 20, the Czech Republic released
the 31-Korana stamp, perforated in a souvenir sheet, that
shows a portrait of Petr Ginz and a copy of his drawing that
was carried by the Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon, on his
shuttle mission in early 2003.
Born in Prague in 1928, the 14-year-old
Ginz created the drawing while he was in Theresienstadt
Ghetto before he was sent to Auschwitz. There he died at age
16 at the hands of the Nazis.
Ramon's mother and grandmother were Auschwitz survivors,
whereas other family members of his perished there. As a
tribute to them, Ramon carried the copy of Ginz's drawing
with him into space. The original "Moon Landscape" is
featured in a showcase in Yad Vashem's Holocaust History
Museum in Israel.
Aside from writing stories and poetry, young Petr also had a
keen interest in the sciences that may have contributed to
his creation of the Moon Landscape pen-and-ink drawings.
Also, perhaps, his aspiration to reach a place from where
the earth, which threatened his life, could be seen from a
secure range may have been another reason that he produced
this particular drawing.
Speaking to the New York-based American Society for Yad
Vashem from Houston, Texas Space Centre where he was
training. Ilan Ramon said,* "I feel that my journey fulfils
the dream of Petr Ginz 58 years on. A dream that is ultimate
proof of the greatness of the soul of a boy imprisoned
within the ghetto walls, the walls of which could not
conquer his spirit. Ginz's drawings, stored at Yad Vashem,
is a testimony to the triumph of the spirit."
*courtesy, Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyers' and Heroes
Remembrance Authority.
Ed. It is appropriate to include a small article published
in the London Jewish Chronicle in February 2005
Asteroid named for Czech Shoah Victim
An
Asteroid has been named after a Czech Jewish boy who was
gassed in Auschwitz and became famous more than 60 years
later, when a picture that he drew was taken on the
tragedy-hit Columbia space shuttle mission.
Petr Ginz's Moon Landscape, sketched while he was imprisoned
by the Nazis, was taken on board the Columbia shuttle in
2003 by Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon.
Czech astronomers said last week that the
International Astronomy Union had approved the proposed
naming in Ginz's honour of asteroid 50413 - a quarter-of-a-kilometer-wide
planetoid which is part of a cluster of asteroids that lies
between Mars and Jupiter.
Ginz's name became famous when his sketch, which he drew
while he was at the Terezin transit camp in what is now the
Czech Republic, was taken on board the shuttle.
Ginz also kept a diary between 1941 and 1942 which will be
published next month, along with short stories and an
unfinished novel describing the Nazi occupation and the time
before his deportation.
The diary was discovered only last year
in the loft of a Prague flat.
It was presented to his sister, Chava
Pressburger, who survived the Holocaust and now lives in
Israel
An
Asteroid has been named after a Czech Jewish boy who was
gassed in Auschwitz and became famous more than 60 years
later, when a picture that he drew was taken on the
tragedy-hit Columbia space shuttle mission.