The Amazing Art of Holocaust Survivor Esther Krinitz

At the age of 50, Esther Nisenthal Krinitz began to create amazing tapestries that told the story of her survival during the Holocaust. Check out our selections of her inspiring work!

When I grew up in Denmark, my family was bound together by love for one another and our intense interest in music. For 35 years my father was a violinist in the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and he wanted me to take up the violin, too. My mother, however, loved the piano. And that did it!

In the 1920s and ‘30s I became immensely busy on the stage, radio and in the movies. But in the 1930s something else was happening in Europe. We in Denmark despised the Nazis, and it was natural for me to make them the butt of much of my satirical humor. That they were not in love with me either was obvious from the letters and threatening phone calls I received.

My father, who at my birth in 1909 was 62 years old, had died in 1932. By the spring of 1940, just as I had left for Sweden to star in a musical revue, Mother grew gravely ill. Then, on April 9th, the Germans swept into Denmark. In my absence Mother was immediately brought to a private hospital and admitted under an assumed name to save her from being held hostage in retaliation for my disappearance, because I had been placed on the most-wanted list by the Nazis.

Known as I was by every Dane, I nevertheless managed to slip back into Denmark undetected. Fully aware of the danger involved, I had to see my mother, who had not been told of the Nazi invasion. Pale and weak, she held out her arms to greet me and drew me close. “You see,” she whispered, “I’m getting better, and soon …” Her strength had gone. At that moment, desperate to find a way to cheer her, I told her that I had just received an incredible offer from Hollywood, and that—as soon as she was well enough—together we would go to America. It was a tremendous lie. At that time I had not the slightest notion of going to America. But I would have done or said anything just to see her smite again. She did … and whispered barely audibly, “…don’t let it go to your head…”

We talked a little until it was time to leave. I leaned down and kissed her. “Good-bye, Mother; and as the sound of the last word echoed in my ears, I knew that I should never see her again.

That evening I returned across the Sound to Sweden. How was it possible to perform those nights in a musical comedy revue? A week later the cablegram came: Mother had died in her sleep. At 10 o’clock on Friday morning there would be a service for her.

I wanted desperately to get back, but it was impossible. The dangers were now too hazardous to overcome, and no longer could I offer comfort to my mother. In my hotel room in Stockholm I read the cable again—“Service at 10 o’clock,” it said. What sort of service would there be? As a student, I’d earned extra money playing the organ at many funeral services. The ritual I knew by heart.

On the day of the funeral, at 9:30 in the morning, I climbed the steps leading to a cemetery in a Stockholm suburb. I knocked on the door of the caretaker’s office. Yes, he understood what I wanted to do, and led me to a small stone chapel, opened the door, walked away, and left me alone.

For a moment I stood in the aisle of the little church. A soft light filtered down from the stained-glass windows. Then I went to the organ and sat down. I looked at my watch. It was almost 10 o’clock.

Five hundred miles south in Copenhagen, the people who knew and loved my mother were filing into the sanctuary where her body rested. I began by playing a simple lullaby that Mother had sung to me. My hands dropped to my lap. After a few moments had passed I could almost hear the voice of someone in that distant chapel speaking about my mother’s dedication to her family and friends, and her devotion to decency and to dignity. I played again, improvising upon some music we had shared.

Strange, I thought, that the walls of the little chapel could withstand the surge of my emotions.

There I was, far from home in another country, forbidden to be at my mother’s side even during the last hours of her life.

But she was now freed from the horrors of war and the Holocaust—and so was I. For her death made it possible for me to escape the tragic fate which I would have been dealt by the enemy.

That’s the way my mother would have chosen it. I know …

And, by miraculous circumstances, I was able to reach America, where soon after I went to Hollywood and was virtually absolved from my great lie.

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An Esther Krinitz tapestry entitled Swimming in the River

1 of 11 Swimming in the River

As children growing up in the pastoral village of Mniszek, Poland, Esther and her family swam in the river by their house. “Mom really wanted my sister and me to see what her home and her family looked like before the war,” Bernice says. “She felt strongly this need to visualize her home and her family. She had always sewn. She had been an apprentice to a dressmaker when she was eight years old. She felt very confident in her stitching capabilities, but she had never stitched anything like this. It was cathartic for her, retaining that connection to her life in a way that became tangible through needle, thread and fabric.”


An Esther Krinitz tapestry entitle Rosh Hashanah

2 of 11 Rosh Hashanah

Before Passover, Esther’s mother and others baked their own matzo, unleavened bread used to observe the Jewish holiday. “Her fondest memories of her childhood, her life before the war, was of the Jewish holidays,” Bernice says. “She did feel that in some way, God was watching over her and her sister. But it was hard for her to understand why the Holocaust happened. That question never left her.”

An Esther Krintiz tapestry entitled The Nazis Arrive

3 of 11 The Nazis Arrive

In September 1939, the Nazis invaded Poland, and the town of Mniszek. They subjected the Jewish community to daily abuse, starting with cutting the beard of Esther’s grandfather. “Many children of Holocaust survivors, like my sister and me, always felt a wish that we could somehow rescue our parents from the tragedy and loss. In some ways that’s what motivated us to create Art and Remembrance. We saw that our mother’s art could be used as a powerful teaching tool to help people gain empathy for others who continue to experience similar tragedies.”


An Esther Krinitz tapestry entitled Janislew Prison Camp

4 of 11 Janislew Prison Camp

“This was one picture that made a big impact on me,” Bernice says. “Mom and her sister took their cows on a beautiful June day to graze by the river and discovered this prison camp where the Nazis put the young Jewish men to work. On the one side, the trees are blooming, the grass is so lush, these two innocent girls are tending their cows. And, on the other side, is this incredible brutality, terror and horror. I call this picture heaven and hell. I think it captures what it’s like to live through a war.”


An Esther Krinitz tapestry entitled The Road To Kraśnik

5 of 11 The Road To Kraśnik

In October 1942, the Nazis ordered the Jews to march 20 miles to the Kraśnik train station, bound for concentration camps. Esther, then 15, refused. She fled with her 13-year-old sister, Mania, to seek refuge. “She didn’t see it as courage or heroic, she saw it as desperate,” Bernice says. “Years later, she’d say she was selfish. She had survivor’s guilt. But there was nothing she could do to save her parents. Her mother encouraged her to go off on her own.”


An Esther Krinitz tapestry entitled Depths of the Forest

6 of 11 Depths of the Forest

Turned away by fearful friends, Esther and Mania roamed the countryside and hid at night in the forest. “My aunt asked, ‘Where are we going to go?’” Bernice says. “My mother told her, ‘God will take care of us.’ It was the faith they had to have in order to continue.” 


An Esther Krinitz tapestry entitle Black Sky Falling

7 of 11 Black Sky Falling

In early November 1942, Esther and Mania found shelter with a farmer in Grabówka who believed they were Catholic farm girls separated from family. The first night, Esther’s mother visited in a dream. “She asked her mother why they were running. ‘Because the sky is falling,’ her mother said, ‘and when it reaches the ground, we will die.’ She looked behind her to see these pieces of black clouds falling. It was a portent of calamity and it was also the last time that she saw her mother—she felt they were still connected.”

An Esther Krinitz tapestry entitled The Bees Save Me

8 of 11 The Bees Save Me

In June 1943, two Nazi soldiers began to question Esther. Bees from the farmer’s honey hives swarmed and drove them away—without stinging the girls. “People believe that God was in those bees,” Bernice says. “I love this picture. In just a few stitches my mother created these perfect bees. I’m awed by them.”


An Esther Krinitz tapestry entitled I Dream of Grandfather

9 of 11 I Dream of Grandfather

“While my mother was living in Grabówka under her assumed identity, the Germans would come through periodically and take young Polish boys and girls off to work in factories,” Bernice says. “The farmer received a warning about a raid. He sent her up into the attic of the barn. There she had a dream. My mother’s grandfather, Zadye, had died during the occupation. But she saw him surrounded by all the familiar things in his house—the grandfather clock and his chest and the portrait of her grandparents hanging on the wall. She pleaded with him to help her because he was close to God. He told her not to worry. In my mother’s dreams, people who she loved reassured her in her greatest moments of need. It gave her hope.”


An Esther Krinitz tapestry entitled Russian Infantry March In

10 of 11 Russian Infantry March In

Esther and Mania were liberated by the Russian army in July 1944. Esther met her husband, Max, at a displaced persons camp. “I went to Mniszek and Grabówka with my mother in 1999,” Bernice says. “The thing that struck me was how faithful my mother’s pictures were. There were still people driving the horse-drawn wooden wagons that are in her pictures. The fields are still farmed in these ribbons of color. When we went back to Grabówka, there were several people who my mother saw there who had been her friends. When they heard she had come to the village they came running out to greet her.”


An Esther Krinitz tapestry entitle Coming to America

11 of 11 Coming to America

Esther and Max immigrated to New York in 1949 with their infant child, Bernice. “My parents were desperate to resume their lives,” Bernice says. “In some ways, my mother was strengthened. What couldn’t she do after she had lived through that? She started her own business, a women’s clothing store. She created this new family that she loved so deeply. That was a miracle.”

For more of Esther’s story and tapestries, visit artandremembrance.org.

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