{"id":10423,"date":"2025-11-07T11:08:48","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T10:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"\/blog\/?p=10423"},"modified":"2026-01-19T14:36:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T13:36:26","slug":"shades-of-black-walter-preissers-prints-of-violence-in-concentration-camps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/blog\/2025\/11\/07\/shades-of-black-walter-preissers-prints-of-violence-in-concentration-camps\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cShades of Black\u201d \u2013 Walter Preisser\u2019s Prints of Violence in Concentration Camps"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cShades of Black\u201d[1]<\/a> \u2013 Walter Preisser\u2019s Prints of Violence in Concentration Camps<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Tomoko Mamine | 6 November 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pl\u00f6tzensee, Luckau, Wuhlheide, Sachsenhausen, Gro\u00df-Rosen, Auschwitz, Buna-Monowitz, Gleiwitz, \u201cDora\u201d, \u201cTurmalin\u201d, Neustadt in Holstein \u2013 these were all stages in the six-year imprisonment of the Jewish artist Walter Preisser, which began with his arrest on 4 December 1938 and ended only with the bombing of the Bay of L\u00fcbeck by British fighter planes on 3 May 1945. Twelve prints created by Preisser after his liberation, shown until 23 November 2025 in the exhibition \u201cOn Displaying Violence: First Exhibitions on the Nazi Occupation in Europe, 1945\u20131948\u201d<\/a>  <\/em>at the Deutsches Historisches Museum, bear witness to the violent experiences of those years.[2]<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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Panel \u201cNeustadt Holstein\u201d in the exhibition Undzer veg in der frayheyt, Roundhouse in the Bergen-Belsen DP camp, 1947. \u00a9 Yad Vashem, Photo Collection, Album FA186\/275<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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An inconspicuous black-and-white photograph from the exhibition Undzer veg in der frayheyt<\/em> (Our Path to Freedom), held from July to November 1947 at the Bergen-Belsen DP camp,[3]<\/a> shows an exhibition panel with the handwritten Yiddish heading \u201cNeustadt Holstein\u201d. Four photo collages are mounted side by side on it, titled \u201cSetting up of the Memorial for the victims of CAP ARCONA\u201d, \u201cJewish Cemetery, Camp Life\u201d, and \u201cWorld ORT Union, Jewish Relief Unit\u201d. Below them are four landscape-format wooden frames, each containing three identically sized prints that appear to depict night-time scenes with people. The inscription refers to the name \u201cWALTER PREISSER\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Walter Preisser, ca. 1947, from his album \u201cNeustadt-Holstein, 1945\u20131948\u201d, Melbourne Holocaust Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Born on 15 July 1899 in Posen, Walter Peiser studied at art schools in Munich and Berlin between 1919 and 1921, and from 1923 onwards worked as an artist and commercial designer in Berlin under the pseudonym Walter Preisser.[4]<\/a> During this period, he created woodcuts, book illustrations, and bookplates for the Maximilian Gesellschaft, the Soncino Society of Friends of the Jewish Book (Gesellschaft der Freunde des j\u00fcdischen Buches) and the Otto von Holten publishing house. His work shows the influence of Expressionism, evident in the stark black-and-white contrasts, angular lines, and hatching, but also references to 15th-century woodcut or 17th-century painting \u2013 for example in the composition, lighting, and landscape design \u2013 or to Japanese woodcut.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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Walter Preisser, Portfolio plate from Die grosse Stadt: Neun Holzschnitte<\/em>, Berlin 1930, The Wolfsonian\u2013FIU, The Mitchell Wolfson, Jr. Collection, 83.2.378<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Preisser had served as a volunteer on the front lines in France during the First World War and opted for German citizenship in 1922 following the German-Polish Convention on Upper Silesia. In view of the escalating discrimination and persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany, he decided to emigrate and was about to leave when he and his non-Jewish partner were arrested on 4 December 1938. After three months in pre-trial detention in Pl\u00f6tzensee, Preisser was sentenced to imprisonment in Luckau Penitentiary for \u201cRassenschande\u201d (racial defilement) under Nazi racial policy. Upon his release in June 1940, this was converted into so-called \u201cSchutzhaft\u201d (protective custody), a measure by which the Nazi regime arbitrarily detained people they perceived as a danger, such as political opponents, Jews, homosexuals, or Sinti and Roma. Preisser was first taken to the Wuhlheide labour camp, followed by the concentration camps at Sachsenhausen, Gro\u00df-Rosen, Auschwitz, Monowitz-Buna, Gleiwitz, \u201cDora-Mittelbau\u201d in Nordhausen and \u201cTurmalin\u201d in Blankenburg.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Preisser owed his survival during this period above all to his artistic abilities, which were recognised and made use of by both fellow prisoners and concentration camp personnel. He was commissioned to produce signage, technical and documentary drawings, as well as artistic works.[7]<\/a> Preisser also used his relatively privileged situation to assist fellow prisoners, such as sixteen- year-old Joseph Sprung, whom he took under his wing in Monowitz as his \u201ccamp son\u201d.[8]<\/a> He ensured that Sprung was trained as a welder by fellow prisoner Norbert Wollheim, who helped organise the Kindertransports in 1938\u201339 and would later become an important figure in the revival of Jewish life in postwar Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the spring of 1945, Preisser was taken on death marches and transports to Neustadt in Holstein, where on 3 May 1945 he survivedthe bombing of the Bay of L\u00fcbeck by British fighter planes and the sinking of the ships Cap Arcona<\/em>, Thielbek <\/em>and Deutschland<\/em>, which were crowded with concentration camp prisoners. More than 7,000 people were killed in the disaster. Preisser was admitted to the Neustadt DP camp, where he established himself as a portrait painter and was active in the DP community.[9]<\/a> He created wall paintings for the synagogue and the stage design for a memorial event for the victims of the attack on the Bay of L\u00fcbeck, held on 5 January 1947 to mark the inauguration of the Jewish cemetery in Neustadt. He also exhibited graphic works in the aforementioned exhibition at the DP camp Bergen-Belsen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Preisser became a teacher of commercial art at the vocational school of the worldwide Jewish training organisation ORT (Organisation for Rehabilitation through Training) in Neustadt, which opened in December 1947. In the course of the investigation against Veit Harlan, the director of the antisemitic propaganda film Jud S\u00fc\u00df, <\/em>Preisser was questioned on 30 April 1948 as a witness to the violent excesses against Jewish prisoners in the concentration camps triggered by the film.[10]<\/a> At the end of 1948, he moved to Hamburg to teach at the newly established ORT school there.[11]<\/a> Finally, in late October 1949, he followed the repeated invitations of Joseph Sprung, who had emigrated to Australia three years earlier. Preisser and his wife, Marianne Else, boarded the SS Cyrenia <\/em>in Genoa and arrived in Melbourne on 7 December 1949.[12]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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Walter Preisser at the ORT School in Hamburg, ca. 1948, from the album \u201cNeustadt- Holstein, 1945\u20131948\u201d, Melbourne Holocaust Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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One day before his departure, Preisser dedicated an art portfolio containing twelve woodblock prints to his \u201ccomrade Neurath, in memory.\u201d Willi Neurath, a communist from Cologne, had been imprisoned in various detention centres and concentration camps including Neuengamme since 1935 and had survived the bombing of theCap Arcona<\/em>. After his liberation, Neurath remained in Neustadt, became head of the state government\u2019s \u201cDepartment of Political Reparations\u201d, and campaigned for the recovery of the bodies and the commemoration of the victims of 3 May 1945. It is very likely that Preisser and Neurath\u2019s paths crossed in this context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n