Thomas Geve / Stefan Cohn (M / Germany, 1929), Holocaust survivor
Thomas Geve / Stefan Cohn (M / Germany, 1929), Holocaust survivor.
- KEYWORDS : <Auschwitz> <Death March> <Gross-Rosen> <Buchenwald> <Liberation of Buchenwald> -- <Switzerland> <England> <Israel>
- MEMOIRS : 'Youth in Chains (1958).
Biography
Thomas Geve was born October 27, 1929 in Stettin and raised in Germany. During the war years, he worked for some months as a gravedigger at the Weißensee Cemetery. He was deported to Auschwitz in June 1943 with his mother who perished in the camp. He stayed in Auschwitz till its evacuation in January 1945, after which he still survived the death march, Gross-Rosen concentration camp and Buchenwald concentration camp until liberation in April 1945. Too weak to leave the camp, he proceeded to record camp life in 79 different drawings, before moving to a camp in Switzerland for orphaned shoah survivors. When his father was located, he was reunited with him in England. In 1950 he emigrated to Israel and settled in Haifa.
Book : Youth in Chains (1958)
- Published in Jerusalem : R. Mass, 1981.
"The vivid, true, intimate story of Europe's youth under the heel of Fascism, their joys and sufferings, their day-to-day life and dreams -- told for the first time by one of them ... The author was taken to Auschwitz in 1942 when he was 13 years old and spent a total of 22 months in Auschwitz and Buchenwald before he was freed by the Allies in April 1945."--Publisher description.
Yad Vashem
Born in Züllchow as Stefan Cohn. In 1939, he moved with his family to Berlin. His father immigrated to England but Stefan and his mother were unable to join him. After the closure of the Jewish schools, he was forced to work in the Jewish cemetery at Weissensee. His mother was put to work making alterations in German Army uniforms. In June 1943, he and his mother were transported to Auschwitz, where they were separated, and his mother was murdered. Stefan was assigned to a bricklaying commando. With the approach of the Red Army in January 1945, he was evacuated on a death march to Gross-Rosen and then to Buchenwald. In April he was liberated by the American Army. Upon his liberation, he drew 79 works depicting his personal annals during the war. He was transferred to an orphanage in Switzerland, and then to England, where he reunited with his father. He immigrated to Israel in 1950, and after army service as an engineer officer, studied and worked as a construction engineer. He published his memoirs in the book Youth in Chains.
These paintings are part of the series Stefan painted immediately upon liberation, in order to be able to relate his wartime annals to his father.
"This is how I then saw Weimar as a fifteen-year-old. I was impressed by the different games children played in the streets. Only after 50 years did I visit the town again, for an exhibition of my miniature pictures at the Buchenwald memorial site." (Thomas Geve)