Counting The People: 'There Must be Order' , 1945/66
21.5 x 28.5 cm (h x w)
Drypoint and aquatint on paper

© Leo Haas estate

In September 1942, Leo Haas was deported to the Terezin (Theresienstadt) ghetto, north of Prague. As an artist, Haas was assigned to the Technical Department to illustrate propaganda material, which enabled him to secretly make a series of pictures showing what life in Theresienstadt was really like. He risked his life making these works, hiding the prints in walls and with the other inhabitants of Theresienstadt. After the war, Haas returned to Terezin, and retrieved some 400 of his drawings. This etching shows a scene with the inmates of the ghetto standing in long, intersecting lines in the outskirts of town as they are waiting to be processed. This powerful and haunting image is one of ten in the Ben Uri Collection printed after the war using the original plate.

Exhibited by:

Ben Uri Research Unit

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