Who is Felix Nussbaum?

Felix Nussbaum (born 11 December 1904 – died 9 August 1944) was a German-Jewish surrealist painter. Nussbaum's work provides insights into the essence of a person among Holocaust victims.

Nussbaum was born in Osnabrück, Germany, as the children of Rahel and Philipp Nussbaum. His father was a World War I veteran and a German patriot before the rise of the Nazis. He was an amateur painter when he was younger, but had to pursue other business avenues for financial reasons. Therefore, he encouraged his son to pursue art as a profession.

Nussbaum was a lifelong student who began his formal education in Hamburg and Berlin in 1920 and continued as long as the contemporary political situation allowed him. In his earlier work, Nussbaum was heavily influenced by Vincent van Gogh and Henri Rousseau, and eventually paid tribute to Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà as well. Karl Hofer's expressionist painting influenced Felix's careful approach to color.

In 1933, Nussbaum was studying at the Berlin Academy of Arts in Rome on a scholarship when the Nazis took control of Germany. Adolf Hitler sent the Minister of Propaganda to Rome in April to explain to the artist elite how a Nazi artist would develop that required heroism and encouragement of the Aryan race. Nussbaum realized at this point that as a Jew he could not remain in academia.

The next decade of Nussbaum's life was characterized by fear reflected in his works of art. He took the painter Felka Platek, whom he met while studying in Berlin in 1934 and whom he would later marry while in exile in Brussels in 1937, to introduce him to his family in Switzerland. Felix's parents eventually missed Germany and returned, despite his fierce objections. This was the last time Felix saw his mother and father, who were the source of his moral and material support. Felix and Felka would spend the next decade mostly in exile in Belgium, a period of emotional and artistic isolation for him but also one of the most artistically productive times in his life.

After Nazi Germany attacked Belgium in 1940, Nussbaum was arrested by Belgian police as a "enemy foreign" German and then taken to the Saint-Cyprien camp in France. The desperate conditions in the camp affected his paintings of that period. He eventually signed a request to be extradited to Germany to the French camp authorities. He manages to escape on the train journey from Saint-Cyprien to Germany and meets Felka in Brussels and they begin a life in hiding. Without residency papers, Nussbaum was unable to earn an income, but his friends provided him with shelter and art supplies so that he could continue his career.

In 1944, the Nussbaum family was greatly influenced by Nazi Germany's plans. Philipp and Rahel Nussbaum were killed at Auschwitz in February. In July, Nussbaum and his wife were found hiding in an attic by the German armed forces. They were arrested, sent to the Mechelen transit camp and given the numbers XXVI/284 and XXVI/285. They arrived at Auschwitz on August 2, and a week later Felix was murdered at the age of 39. On September 3, Nussbaum's brother was deported to Auschwitz, and on September 6 his sister-in-law and niece were also killed there. In December, his brother, the last member of the family, died of exhaustion at the camp at Stutthof. Within a year, the entire Nussbaum family was slaughtered.