Jews in the Holocaust, three sketches by Moshe Bernstein and Esther Lurie
1. "Portrait of a Young Girl with Two Yellow Stars", sketch by Esther Lurie (1913–1998), after a work by herself created in the Kovno Ghetto. Pencil on paper. Signed.
12X22.5 cm. Good condition.
2. Jew in a Procession, sketch by Moshe Bernstein (1920–2006). Ink on thick paper. Signed.
11.5X18 cm. Good condition.
3. Bound Jew Wearing Phylacteries, sketch by Moshe Bernstein (1920–2006). Ink on paper. Signed.
17X22 cm. Good condition. A few stains. The paper is very thin and mounted on thick paper.
Esther Lurie (1913-1998), a painter and stage designer, Dizengoff Prize laureate. Born in Latvia, she immigrated to Palestine in 1934, worked in art, and became well known. In 1941, she visited her sister in Kovno, Lithuania, and upon the Nazi invasion was interned in the ghetto. Lurie continued to paint in the ghetto, documenting what happened there, buried her works before the ghetto was liquidated. She secretly painted the camps to which she was sent. After the liberation, a collection of her paintings was published in the book "Jewesses in Slavery" published by the Jewish Soldiers’ Club of Rome in 1945. She won the Dizengoff Prize for Painting a second time for her work "Portrait of a Young Woman with Two Yellow Stars," which she painted in the Kovno Ghetto.
Moshe Bernstein (1920-2006), painter, illustrator, and poet. Born in Poland, he attended the Vilna Academy of Art. Interned in the Bialystok Ghetto together with his family, he escaped to Soviet Russian territory, remaining until 1947, when he tried to reach Palestine as part of the clandestine immigration program known as Aliyah Bet. He was captured and sent to Cyprus. He painted many works depicting scenes from the Jewish shtetl in Eastern Europe and also dealt with the Holocaust in his paintings.