Peter Kien

Franz Peter Kien or František Petr Kien ( born January 1, 1919 in Varnsdorf, Czechoslovakia; † end of 1944 in Auschwitz ) was a German- Czech- Jewish artist and poet.

Life

Kien, son of a textile manufacturer, attended the grammar school in Brno and became friends with Joseph Hahn. He began studying at the Academy of Arts in Prague. There he met Peter Weiss, who mentions him in his autobiographical narratives Leavetaking (1961) and Vanishing Point (1962). Kien wrote poems, stories and screenplays. He also created pencil drawings and oil paintings created on which he portrayed people. After the occupation of the Czech Republic by the Wehrmacht and the creation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia Kien and the other Jewish fellow students of the Academy were expelled by order of the Nazi occupiers of the Academy. White emigrated to Sweden, tap to England. Kien continued to study at a private school of graphic design and gave Jewish children drawing classes in the vineyard synagogue. There he met his wife Ilse Stransky know that was him for his drawings model.

From December 1941 to October 1944 he was imprisoned in the Theresienstadt ghetto. There he wrote the libretto for Viktor Ullmann's one-act opera The Emperor of Atlantis and was varied otherwise artistically active. On 16 October 1944 he was deported with his wife and parents to Auschwitz. Kien died soon after arriving from an infection.

To a prolonged controversy over his estate arose between the Terezín Memorial and survivors.