This forgotten archive of art school applications reveals stories of young Jews who tried to escape Nazism

Decades later, archives show that few managed to escape and many ended up victims of the Holocaust

For weeks, months and even years before the start of World War II in September 1939, many Jews in Germany and beyond became increasingly fearful for their lives and desperately sought ways to escape.

Now, more than 80 years after the end of the war, an incredible set of documents from a prestigious art school has been discovered, containing photographs, detailed letters and samples of artwork from almost 100 candidates who hoped to escape Nazism.

Acceptance into the Bezalel (present-day) art school, first founded in 1906, sometimes gave Jews fleeing Nazism the possibility of entering Palestine, whose immigration was tightly controlled under the British Mandate.

Only a fraction of applicants were accepted, and among those even fewer were able to make the trip.

The documents were discovered on the shelves of Jerusalem’s municipal archives in 2022 by Bezalel archive employees who were investigating the institution’s history. What they found surprised them: dozens of detailed apps dating back to the 1930s that had never been digitized or even studied.

They contacted the , the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, hoping to preserve evidence of what, for many, turned out to be a last desperate attempt to find a safe haven.

Yad Vashem researchers began studying the candidates, comparing details in the files with information in their extensive databases.

“It’s very, very special to find such a large collection that has never been touched or studied before,” explains Orit Noiman, head of Yad Vashem’s “Collecting the Fragments” initiative, which collects, preserves and catalogs Holocaust-era artifacts from personal collections. While some have been found alive, “most of the candidates we’ve looked at so far have been dead,” he says.

Entries came from all over Europe, including Amsterdam, Berlin, Vienna, Prague and Łódź. Most date from the 1930s, although several were made during and even after the war.

It is unclear how the files ended up in the archives, located in Jerusalem’s city hall, but Noiman believes they may have been accidentally left behind when Bezalel changed address in 1990.

Noiman believes the portfolios presented indicate that although some aspiring artists applied, many did so not out of a long-held desire to pursue a career in art, but out of a desperate hope of escaping the Nazis.

“They might know how to paint or do something with their hands, but they weren’t really artists. Of course they wanted to try to find a way out,” he says.

A fuller picture emerges from another element of the documentation: a series of correspondence between Bezalel’s then-director Josef Budko, the Jewish Agency, and other organizations hoping to facilitate a large-scale rescue of persecuted Jews.

“There are letters from Budko that show that they tried to find ways to help these young people,” says Noiman.

Lital Spivak and Neta Eran-Cohen were the two Bezalel researchers who made the discovery.

“We were both surprised and deeply moved,” recalls Spivak, currently an art historian working on a doctorate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem that is part of the research. She detailed correspondences that show Budko trying to obtain immigration certificates as well as financial support for accepted applicants – which, in many cases, proved successful.

Spivak says the archive included 88 personal files, but that about 40 other individuals were mentioned in Budko’s correspondence. A total of 49 applicants were accepted, but only 27 were able to travel to Jerusalem to study at Bezalel.

“Others emigrated to other places, some never received letters of acceptance due to the disruptions of the war, and others were unable to leave Europe and were later murdered,” he says.

Professor Adi Stern, current president of Bezalel and son of a Holocaust survivor, confesses that the revelation touched him on a personal level. “Even though this initiative only saved the lives of a few dozen people, they ended up giving birth to hundreds and even thousands of families, so it’s very significant.”

Based on the recently released investigation, below are some of the candidates’ stories.

Alice and Susanne Fall

Alisa Stern always knew that her aunt Alice had been an artist. Her mother, Susanne, talked about her older sister and hung some of her paintings in the family home in Israel.

But only in 2022, after the discovery of the set of documents and eight decades after Alice Fall died in the Łódź Ghetto, did Stern discover that she had applied to be the Bezalel of Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.

Unexpectedly, the files also included an application from Alisa’s mother.

The sisters applied together from their hometown of Moravská Ostrava, signing the forms on July 14, 1939. Susanne’s application included paintings of two dogs, but she suspects they were done by Alice.

“My mother didn’t know how to paint,” he tells CNN. “Yad Vashem told me there’s no way the files could have been switched, so it was probably a way to help my mother gain acceptance.”

Both sisters were rejected. In 1941, Alice was deported with her husband to Łódź.

In 1943, Susanne and her mother were deported to Theresienstadt, where they remained until the end of the war. He arrived in Palestine in 1947, according to his daughter, who said that learning about the candidacies was “shocking”.

“To think about what the situation would have been like if they had been accepted is shocking – everything would have been different,” he says.

Eva Israel

Eva Israel signed up from her home in Vienna in August 1938, when she was 17 years old. Without money to pay for shipping, he sent the application with a friend who was emigrating to Palestine.

Bezalel sent him a letter of acceptance on October 25, 1938, just weeks before Crystal Night. The Jewish Agency agreed to cover the fees imposed by the British authorities and a certificate of entry was sent in early 1939.

But the story did not end happily, as she was forced to leave the Austrian capital and return to her family home in Hungary. Budko wrote urgently to the British consul asking for the authorization to be sent to Budapest. It arrived on March 16, just two weeks before it expired.

Even at the last minute, he managed to board a boat and arrived in Haifa on March 29. Although she signed up at Bezalel, she didn’t stay long as she had no money and was unable to contact her family.

Israel’s enrollment folder contained documents and letters, but no images or artwork, as these were likely returned to him when he started school, according to Yad Vashem.

Helmut Paskusz

Medical student and artist Helmut Paskusz signed up at the end of July 1939. Born in Brno, Czechoslovakia, he had worked as a caricaturist and newspaper illustrator and wanted to study applied graphics. His portfolio included designs for advertisements for cigarettes and sunglasses.

It was rejected on August 31, 1939, the day before the start of the war. Budko mentioned Paskusz by name in a letter to the Jewish Agency, saying he regretted not being able to help him. Spivak explains that this was “highly unusual” and added, “I believe something was forced on Budko from above – most likely a budget constraint that prevented him from granting an immigration certificate.”

According to Yad Vashem, Paskusz was transported from Brno to Terezin in April 1942 and, later that month, to Warsaw. Almost everyone on that transport died. Paskusz’s fate is further confirmed in the archives through a Testimony Page presented by a former girlfriend, who said he was “murdered” in April 1942.

Marie Ellinger

Marie Ellinger was 18 years old when she applied in the summer of 1939 from Prague. She included a handwritten letter describing her education, explaining that she had studied sewing and drawing and done some work as a fashion illustrator.

The young woman attached photographs of herself and some of her designs, but was rejected because the school did not have tailoring-related courses.

Yad Vashem’s investigation shows that Ellinger was transferred from Prague to Theresienstadt in one of the city’s first transports of Jews. A month later, she was sent to Riga, where she was murdered.

Samuel Zimmerman

The files also included applications from potential teachers like Samuel Zimmerman. Born in Poland in the early 1880s, he applied in May 1939 from Vienna.

Zimmerman was an experienced sculptor, and his application included numerous photographs of his works. He was rejected because there were no vacancies to teach sculpture at the school.

His brother submitted a Testimony Page for him in 1955, in which he stated that he was “killed by the Nazis” on his way to Israel. Yad Vashem investigators found “external data” that suggest he died on the Kladovo Transport, which, according to , was a transport of refugees bound for Palestine that was intercepted by the Nazis.

Zahava roses

Zahava Rosen was one of several survivors who sought to join Bezalel and included a detailed essay about her experiences during the war.

In her writings, she described being sent with her older sister to a work camp at Kraków airport in 1942 and said her parents were murdered the following year. “In a single day, five members of my family disappeared,” he wrote. He applied after the war, in 1947, and ended up studying weaving and embroidery.