If+the+children+of+Holocaust+got+caught+creating+such+works+in+the+camps,+what+was+their+punishment+(if+any)?

Punishment for the Arts
Maddie Welsh



Life in the concentration camps was difficult. Children had brought along art tools from home and hid them from the guards, even though they knew the act of doing so was risky. If someone was caught with these tools, they were punished. The type of punishment depended on which concentration camp you were in. In some camps, punishment wasn't that harsh. In others, the punishment could have been as bad as death.

As Lawrence Langer wrote in his unpretensious and astute anthology //Art From the Ashes: A Holocaust Anthology:// "The men and women [and children] who sketched and and painted their visions of Terezin knew the danger of their enterprise: if they were caught, they might pay with their lives, and many did." (Langer, 663)

The difference in punishments did not just vary in artwork, however. The punishment depended on the person committing the crime, who was in charge of giving punishments, which concentration camp the 'criminal' was in, and what the act was that deserved the punishment. Unfortunately, concentration camps served as one purpose only: exterminate all Jews. This means that almost any crime could result in death.