"Camp-Flowers" – Booklet of Sketches by Siegfried Alva – Portraits of Internees at the British Internment Camps on ...

"Camp-Flowers" – Booklet of Sketches by Siegfried Alva – Portraits of Internees at the British Internment Camps on the Isle of Man – Isle of Man, 1940
Camp-Flowers, booklet of sketches by Siegfried Alva – portraits of internees at the British internment camps on the Isle of Man. No publisher or year indicated, [Isle of Man, 1940?]. English.
A booklet with 13 sketches by Siegfried Alva, created in ca. 1940, while Alva was imprisoned at one of the British internment camps on the Isle of Man. Alva's sketches depict people he met during his period of internment, including Rabbi Josef Hirsch Dunner (1913-2007), who served as Rosh Beth Din of the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations in London in the years 1960-2007. Printed at the beginning of the booklet is a passage from the book "A Descriptive and Historical Account of the Isle of Man" (Newscastle, 1809).
At the outbreak of World War II, 75,000 German and Austrian citizens were living in Great Britain; most had arrived during the 1930s, fleeing Nazi persecution. The British government, fearing infiltration by Nazi spies and collaborators, resolved on a policy of arrest and detention. First, all the German and Austrian men aged 16 to 60 were arrested; later the women were arrested as well. In July 1940 the detainees were sent to the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea (a Crown Dependency), where a number of internment camps were built. Out of the thousands of detainees on the Isle of Man, the majority were Jews; many had been in open opposition to the Nazi regime. A rich cultural scene developed in the camps (many of the detainees were professors, doctors, scientists and artists).
Sigfried Solomon Alweiss (1901-1973), born in Berlin, began his career as an artist in ca. mid-1920s, using the pseudonym "Alva". He studied art in Paris and settled in England in 1938. Alva often painted portraits, and many of his works portrayed Biblical themes and subjects related to Jewish life in Eastern Europe.
[8] leaves, 20 cm. Good condition. A small number of stains and minor tears.
Not in OCLC.