Hidden art collection from Theresienstadt ghetto to be displayed by London Holocaust library

A rare cache of drawings secretly created inside the Nazi-run Theresienstadt ghetto by Jewish poet and artist Peter Kien has been deposited at the Wiener Holocaust Library in London, the institution says in a statement released on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The collection of 681 artworks offers an intimate visual record of life inside the ghetto, also known as Terezín, including portraits of fellow inmates and scenes from its clandestine cultural and musical life.

Kien, a gifted Czech artist, poet and playwright, was deported to Theresienstadt in 1941 and murdered at Auschwitz in October 1944 at the age of 25. Before his deportation, Kien entrusted a suitcase containing his drawings, manuscripts and letters to his partner, Helga Wolfenstein, who survived the ghetto. She hid the suitcase in an infectious diseases ward to avoid Nazi searches, and preserved it after liberation.

In 1970, the works were seized by the Communist government of Czechoslovakia. Wolfenstein spent decades seeking their return but died before succeeding. Her daughter, Judy King, who now lives in Florida, secured restitution earlier this month and donated the collection to the London archive.

The drawings will be conserved, digitized and made available to researchers worldwide, preserving rare evidence of artistic resilience and Jewish cultural life under Nazi persecution, the library says.