Bar Mitzva Album

“To dear Jerzy on his 13^th birthday, recollections from his childhood and from Terezin, friends from Kyjov in Terezin, April 1, 1943”.

In the album that Jerzy’s friends from Kyjov prepared in honor of his Bar Mitzva, the course of his life is set out from his birth up to and including his life in Theresienstadt.

The pages of the album were illustrated by Max Placek, himself a native of Kyjov and connected to Jerzy’s family through his brother. Placek was a talented caricaturist, who drew some 700 caricatures of inmates of the ghetto. The illustration of the album was a special project, different from his usual expertise.

Placek was not privileged to participate in the Bar Mitzva celebration. In December 1943 he was sent from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz where he perished.