to the Reich, and they required that it support the myth of the noble heroic German. The approved mode was an academic static style known as sentimental realism; the favored subjects were portraits of soldiers, idyllic landscapes, virile German youths, and noble wives and mothers. Both style and subject had to conform to Nazi ideals, there would be no place for art that served the private self or expressed the artist inner passions. Although the art of the Holocaust is rooted in prewar artistic traditions, the victims labored under circumstances that no group of artist had ever been forced to deal with. Constant torture, mass executions, excruciating hard labor and malnutrition, we would expect, would lead to the disintegration of the victims will to survive. Though this was true for a very small percentage of Holocaust victims, most of who never stopped fighting, and this was prevalent in many works left behind by both the victims and survivors.
             Under normal conditions an artist struggle begins when he is faced with the task of transforming materials into the image created in ones mind. The Holocaust artist's problem began with the attainment of simple materials. The art that was finally created was affected by the availability of these materials and specific conditions dictated the media in which the artists were able to work. Thus, art produced in various areas the ghetto, the concentration camp, or hideouts, often had distinctive characteristics. Within each area similarities appear in works by very different artists. Artists in the ghetto and those in hiding, were often able to acquire, with difficulty, professional art supplies. Their works were large and painted in watercolor and oil. Many of the works done in hiding remain unfinished because the artist were caught and deported. In contrast to the colorful pictures made by artists in urban hideouts, those done by partisans hiding in the woods are quite primitive. Art ...