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Her father used art to save lives during Holocaust
By Bryan Lucier/Independent Staff Writer
NORTH KINGSTOWN - Nazis forced Joseph Bau, an artist, to paint signs in Hebrew for the other prisoners and create maps for the German army. The job made him useful to the Germans, thus sparing his life, and he used the opportunity to try to free as many other Jewish people as he could. Clila Bau, daughter of two Holocaust survivors, related the story of her parents' experiences in the concentration camps at Davisville Middle School Thursday. Her visit coincided with Student Awareness Day, a program created to promote tolerance and understanding in the school. Using the writing materials the Nazis allowed him to make the signs and maps, her father forged more than 400 documents for Jews to escape the camps, never once making one for himself. "The art saved his life, and, in turn, he saved others," she said. Bau, who was in Rhode Island for an exhibition of her father's artwork, said her parents were two of the few willing to speak of their experiences inside of the concentration camps. While most refused to relive that part of their lives with their children, her parents were open about the circumstances that surrounded them as they met and fell in love. Living in the Plaszow concentration camp, Bau said, her parents met in the most unusual way. Her father was asked to create a blueprint of the camp, which, at that time, involved holding the plan up to the sun so the negative is transferred to another piece of paper. The only problem was that it was the dead of winter and there was no sun. Obviously, the Nazis were less than understanding. "They told him a blueprint, or a bullet in the head," she said. While he was futilely holding the picture up to the sky, a woman came along and inquired about his strange actions, asking if he was signaling to American planes. Bau, resigned to death, held up the paper to the woman and asked if she would be his sun. She ran away, embarrassed, but Bau said her father was shocked to find that it worked, and had to see her again. Eventually, they fell in love Since money basically had no value in the camps, Bau said, her father refused to eat the little bread they received for a few days and purchased two silver teaspoons, which he eventually had made into rings for the wedding. Bau said her parents were married in the camp after her father used a white kerchief to sneak into the women's bunks. When Germans learned that men were hiding with the women, Bau's mother and her bunkmates hid her father from the soldiers. Two other men hiding in the building were found and beaten to death. Realizing that he would be killed if he was not back for the count at the men's bunk, Bau said her father raced back, only to discover his route was blocked. Rather than submit himself to torture from the Nazis, Bau threw himself onto a nearby electrified fence, but was not electrocuted. Although he received a number of cuts from the barbed wire, he was able to make it back without being discovered. Although they were separated after leaving Plaszow, her father sent to Oscar Schindler's fake factory and her mother to Auschwitz, they would be reunited after the war in Czechoslovakia. Although there were some inaccuracies in the story line, Bau said her father praised Steven Spielberg's movie "Schindler's List," which features the Baus' secret wedding. He said Spielberg showed the audience about as much as they could handle. "Dad said it was 10 times worse than what was in the movie," she said. "He said if Spielberg had shown the true cruelty, no one would have been able to sit through it." Bau's presentation was a part of a diversity program at the school that included a Community Awareness Night Thursday evening. The presentations included performances, presentations, speeches, activities and showcases of student work on the commitment to improve tolerance and acceptance of diversity. |
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