: Bedřich Fritta, Arrest, 1943/44
Ink, pen, wash, 37,5 x 49 cm
© Thomas Fritta-Haas, long-term loan to the Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jens Ziehe

Metaphors of Death

Many of Fritta's drawings turn natural phenomena and the ghetto buildings into harbingers of death and danger. Alluding to traditional metaphors, he arranges wintry trees and storm clouds into sinister stage sets. As well as these natural motifs, elements of the fortress architecture signify impending death: vaults and walls loom up ominously, gates and tunnel entrances lead into the dark with no visible way out.

Fritta's metaphors of death are particularly striking in the picture Abandoned Luggage, with its leafless trees against impenetrable walls, a dark night sky, and luggage left to lie. This is not the story of a specific moment in the ghetto, but speaks of the absence of human beings—of life extinguished.

: Bedřich Fritta, Abandoned Luggage, 1943/44
Pen and ink, 36 x 57 cm
© Thomas Fritta-Haas, long-term loan to the Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jens Ziehe

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: Bedřich Fritta, Israel and Sara, 1943/44
Ink, pen and brush, 36,7 x 48,1 cm
© Thomas Fritta-Haas, long-term loan to the Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jens Ziehe

"Israel" and "Sara" were the names that Jewish Germans were forced to take from 1939 on. These two figures, wrapped in cloths and wearing their transport numbers, embody the fate of their fellows in suffering.

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: Bedřich Fritta, A Rest for the Old, 1943/44
Ink, pen and brush, 47,8 x 76,4 cm
© Thomas Fritta-Haas, long-term loan to the Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jens Ziehe

Fritta creates an evocative contrast between the Baroque fortress walls surrounded by wasteland and the gaunt figures huddled on a fallen tree. The image refers not only to a specific detail of Theresienstadt's architecture, but also to more general ways of representing suffering and desolation.

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: Bedřich Fritta, Ghetto Wall with Gate, 1943/44
Ink, pen and brush, wash, 33,3 x 25,1 cm
© Thomas Fritta-Haas, long-term loan to the Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jens Ziehe

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: Bedřich Fritta, Ghetto Gate, 1943/44
Ink, black chalk, watercolor, wash, 32,6 x 25 cm
© Thomas Fritta-Haas, long-term loan to the Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jens Ziehe

A pencil sketch on the lower part of the sheet shows a man with a sketchbook, drawing a seated figure.

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: Bedřich Fritta, Yard in the Sudeten Barracks, 1943
Ink, pen and brush, 28,5 x 38,2 cm
© Thomas Fritta-Haas, long-term loan to the Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jens Ziehe

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: Bedřich Fritta, Transport Arriving in Theresienstadt, 1943
Ink, pen and brush, 28,5 x 38,2 cm
© Thomas Fritta-Haas, long-term loan to the Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Jens Ziehe

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Bedřich Fritta
Drawings
from the
Theresienstadt
Ghetto

Metaphors of Death