Lecture: “The Artist David Ludwig Bloch, the November Pogroms of 1938, and the Dachau Concentration Camp”

75th Anniversary of the November Pogroms

Lecture: “The
Artist David Ludwig Bloch, the November Pogroms of 1938, and the Dachau Concentration Camp”

On
November 27, 2013 Dr. Michaela Haibl and Dr. Dirk Riedel will present the life
and work of the deaf artist David Ludwig Bloch, who was sent to the Dachau concentration camp
in November 1938.

Roll-call in November 1938; by David Ludwig Bloch
Roll-call in November 1938; by David Ludwig Bloch

David
Ludwig Bloch, born on March 25, 1910 in Floß (Upper
Palatinate), loses his hearing as a child due to meningitis. He
learns the trade of porcelain painter and later works as a decorator and graphic
designer in advertising. He is one of 10,911 Jewish men deported to the Dachau concentration camp
in the wake of the “Night of Broken Glass”. Bloch is especially vulnerable to
the harassment and violence reigning in the camp due to his impairment. After a
month in the Dachau camp he is released and
manages to emigrate in 1940 on the last ship to leave Venice
for Shanghai.

In 1949 he moves to New York where he works for 26 years as an
art lithographer. First returning to Germany
in 1976, Bloch, after visiting the Dachau Memorial Site, tries to artistically
work through and come to terms with the Holocaust and his personal experiences
in the Dachau
concentration camp. David Ludwig Bloch dies in the United States on September 16,
2002.

The event begins at 7 pm and will be held in the
Visitor’s Center at the Dachau Memorial Site, Pater-Roth-Str. 2a; admission is free.

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