Exhibition of Ghetto Terezin paintings at the Foreign Ministers’ Conference in Prague

In November 2022, the 2nd Terezin Conference was held in Prague, Czech Republic, with 46 countries represented by foreign ministers and special ambassadors.

The conference dealt with the restitution of Jewish property that was confiscated during and after the Holocaust and was organized by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the ambassadors Dan HaTzeri and Dr. Robert Rehak, who contacted ‘Moreshet’ – The Mordechai Anielewicz International Center for Holocaust Documentation, Research, and Education, with a request to set up an exhibition to be shown at the conference itself.

The exhibition dealt with underground paintings painted in the Terezin ghetto by well-known painters there since before the war, which is in a heritage archive.

The paintings depict the true reality of life in the Terezin ghetto and not the false one that the Nazis wanted to present to the world. The exhibition was throughout the 3 days of the conference behind the stage of the dignitaries and speakers and received great interest and success. The conference was attended by Yaakov Asher, CEO of Moreshet, who guided and told those interested about the artists’ stories and the paintings’ important role in understanding the reality of life in the ghetto.

Thanks to a brave relationship created with the special ambassador of Slovenia Ms. Blanka Jamnišek, she connected us with the Jewish community in Slovenia, who took the basis of our exhibition, translated it into the Slovenian language, and added several panels with a focused reference to the Slovenian Jews in the Terezin ghetto. The result was a beautiful and successful combination of the artists’ paintings and historical information and data.

The exhibition was inaugurated with the Czech ambassador to Slovenia, the heads of the Jewish community, the Slovenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, academics, and more.