Frederick Terna (October 8, 1923 – December 8, 2022) was an Austrian-born American painter and

Holocaust survivor Holocaust survivors are people who survived the Holocaust, defined as the persecution and attempted annihilation of the Jews by Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, its collaborators before and during World War II ...

who lived for many years in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

Early life and Shoah

Frederick Terna was born Friedrich Arthur Taussig to Jochanan "Jan" and Lona (née Herzog) Taussig in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

on October 8, 1923. In 1926, his brother Tomáš "Tommy" was born. Later that year, the family moved back to their hometown of Prague. After the German invasion of 1939, the brothers Fred and Tommy were barred from attending school as Jews. Terna's family went into hiding in the Czech countryside and acquired false identities changing their name to "Terna" from "Taussig." The false identity was discovered in 1941 and the family was sent to concentration camps. Terna was interned at the Lípa forced labor camp from October of that year to March 1943. He was then transferred to the

Theresienstadt Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination c ...

concentration camp, where he was briefly reunited with his father, who had been deported to Theresienstadt in December 1941. In the fall of 1944 Terna was deported to

Auschwitz Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschw ...

. Towards the end of 1944 he was transferred again to Kaufering, a sub-camp of

Dachau Dachau (, ; , ; ) was one of the first concentration camps built by Nazi Germany and the longest-running one, opening on 22 March 1933. The camp was initially intended to intern Hitler's political opponents, which consisted of communists, s ...

. He was liberated in April 1945 and spent the next few months in a hospital. His entire family was murdered in the Shoah.

Later life and artistic career

In 1946 Terna went to Paris and studied painting at the

Académie de la Grande Chaumière The Académie de la Grande Chaumière () is an art school in the Montparnasse district of Paris, France. History The school was founded in 1904 by the Catalan painter Claudio Castelucho on the rue de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, near the A ...

and at the

Académie Julian The () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907). The school was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number and qual ...

. In 1952 he moved to New York City, where he lived for the remainder of his life. His artistic oeuvre dealt with his experiences in the concentration camps and with themes of Jewish thought and history. His paintings are part of important public and private collections, including the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

and the

Albertina The Albertina is a museum in the Innere Stadt (First District) of Vienna, Austria. It houses one of the largest and most important print rooms in the world with approximately 65,000 drawings and approximately 1 million old master prints, as well ...

. Terna has taught a course on the history of Jewish art at the

New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers ...

. Terna died on December 8, 2022, at the age of 99. Terna's funeral was held at Kane Street Synagogue in Brooklyn, where he had been a longtime member.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Terna, Fredrick 1923 births 2022 deaths American people of Austrian-Jewish descent Jewish painters Austrian Holocaust survivors Theresienstadt Ghetto prisoners Auschwitz concentration camp prisoners Painters from Brooklyn Painters from Vienna The New School faculty

Early life and Shoah

Later life and artistic career

Further reading

References