© 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 illustrates the everyday life in the ghetto’s crowded marketplace. The title contrasts with the scene in the foreground: a grieving woman covering her face, as the body of a dead relative, is carried away on a barrow. This powerful image is one of ten in the Ben Uri Collection printed after the war using the original plate.