Museum exhibit unearths underground youth magazine in Terezin Ghetto
The exhibit is called "Vedem Underground: The Secret Magazine of the Terezin Ghetto (1942-1944)."
By TNSUpdated: OCTOBER 21, 2018 02:54From the exhbition “Vedem Underground: The Secret Magazine of the Terezin Ghetto (1942-1944)”(photo credit: Courtesy)
In 1942, a secret group of teenage boys produced an underground magazine while imprisoned inside the walls of the Terezin Ghetto, a Czechoslovakian show camp designed by the Nazis to hide their plans of mass extermination.Living in what was previously a classroom, the boys found a typewriter and started documenting the daily life and struggles inside the 18th-century walled fortress about 40 miles north of Prague. The publication also revealed the inner thoughts of teenagers through poetry, illustrations, even jokes.The title of the magazine is at the top in black ink and large — Vedem, which means “in the lead” in Czech.A powerful new exhibit exploring the magazine, titled “Vedem Underground: The Secret Magazine of the Terezin Ghetto (1942-1944),” opened this week at the Breman Museum in Atlanta. The exhibit will be on display through March 10.The exhibit premiered about two years ago at the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, and since then, it has traveled to other cities including Houston, Portland, Ore., and Austin, Texas. This marks the first time the exhibit comes to the Southeast. The exhibit, which features reproductions of Vedem, is an art installation that deconstructs the literary work of the longest-running underground magazine in a Nazi camp.Named one of Smithsonian magazine’s 10 “Don’t Miss” new exhibits for winter 2017, this exhibit was produced and curated by Rina Taraseiskey, granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. She is also the executive director of the Vedem Foundation, and working on producing a documentary about Vedem. For the exhibit, she also worked with Dallas-based writer and journalist Danny King, who is producing and co-writing the companion book, and art director Michael Murphy.The first 30 issues were created using the typewriter. After the ribbon went dry, 53 issues were produced by hand. The weekly issues were accompanied by cartoons and illustrations — including cartoons about sick prisoners and a cartoon of a guard staring at a boy. Other art work featured the boys’ hometown of Prague — landscapes, cafes, a family dog. Here is an excerpt from a poem written by one of the contributors, Hanus Hachenburg.Here is an excerpt from a poem written by one of the contributors, Hanus Hachenburg.What good to mankind is the beauty of science?What good is the beauty of pretty girls?
