A Wikipedia link to a page about the artist, Petr Kien/Klein - I have seen it written both ways. Well worth reading as he was a prolific artist and well known figure.
Peter Kien - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A Wikipedia link to a page about the artist, Petr Kien/Klein - I have seen it written both ways. Well worth reading as he was a prolific artist and well known figure.
Peter Kien - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Another interesting part of the history of these notes, was the widespread post war belief that they were never issued to those in the ghetto, only being created as part of the ruse to mislead the Red Cross organisation during their visit. This was only discounted when survivors began to speak of the notes, their usage and the system - including savings cards, details of which were only revealed later. The Germans did indeed manage to mislead the Red Cross visitors in many ways, including the installation of a large detailed bathroom - now if the Red Cross visitors had only tried the taps...they'd have found that they were not actually plumbed in...
It seems entirely plausible that Jindra Schmidt was instructed to make Kien's original idealised portrait of Moses appear more in line with the German stereotypical image of a "Jew" as portrayed in other German anti-Semitic propaganda. I assume the story about Heydrich's involvement in the design change was told by Jindra Schmidt after the war as Kien had died in Auschwitz 1944.
But........
The image on the left was IMO drawn by an engraver and is unlike any of the drawing styles I could find used by Kien. Was Kien an engraver at all? It was normal practice for creative artwork to be handed over to a skilled and trained engraver to reproduce the original artwork in a form that could be printed.
The drawing technique and pen-tools used by a engraver are highly specialised and engravings feature the distinctive use of distinctive cross-hatched strokes to achieve shading and contours. This is evident in both examples illustrated. IMO the cross-hatching exhibited in both of these examples was done by the same hand and that would be Jindra Schmidt who was an engraver first and foremost. In other words the left image is not the original Kien sketch but a first iteration of Schmidt's engraved interpretation of the sketch.
I think the likely scenario would have been Jindra Schmidt produced an engraving based on an original sketch by Kien and that first engraving was the left image which was rejected by whomever (some reports seem suggest this was Eichmann rather than Heydrich) and the second engraving on the right was created and used in the final bank notes.
Below a section from a supreme example of an engraving after a drawing by William Miller which shows the cross-hatching technique needed to reproduce shading and contours of a drawing in print.
Last edited by StefanM; 12-01-2013 at 05:50 PM.
I collect, therefore I am.
Nothing in science can explain how consciousness arose from matter.
Hello Carl and Stefen , I know this is not really relevant but here is an image of the passage of the Ten Commandments from my Hebrew Torah. As I said in an earlier post , I cannot read Hebrew apart from the very odd word so I had to cross reference this with my standard "English" bible.(EXODUS 20 V1-18) EDIT: I apologise for the fact that the top picture is in fact the last commandment and the bottom picture should have been first! Leon.
Judaism has 613 mitzvot (commandments) rather than the Christian ten commandments.
BTW if you can read one or two words of Hebrew then this is one or two more words than I can
I collect, therefore I am.
Nothing in science can explain how consciousness arose from matter.
Ha Ha , Melek (king) is one of the very few that "stand out" for me , if I knew how to get up Hebrew text on my type settings I would type it out for you! Leon.
QUOTE 4thskorpion "I assume the story about Heydrich's involvement in the design change was told by Jindra Schmidt after the war as Kien had died in Auschwitz 1944."
Yes, the artist died due to a disease, shortly after his arrival at the Auschwitz camp system.
QUOTE 4thskorpion "I think the likely scenario would have been Jindra Schmidt produced an engraving based on an original sketch by Kien and that first engraving was the left image..."
That is correct.
QUOTE 4thskorpion "...which was rejected by whomever (some reports seem suggest this was Eichmann rather than Heydrich) and the second engraving on the right was created and used in the final bank notes."
What is the source that identifies any connection with Eichmann? I read this on an Internet site but there was no credit as to where this information came from.
Further, the Schmidt biography states "the order was given by the management of the bank (Czech National) to Schmidt" - this was of course an order with the authority of the Reichsprotektor office - headed by Heydrich. It has been stated by more than one early Czech source that the initial designs - drawn by the artist Petr Kien, were rejected by Reinhard Heydrich for the reasons highlighted earlier in this thread and others. The same sources also name the designer Bedřich Fojtášek as being involved with the design process, probably as an assistant to Schmidt - who also worked on other banknotes and stamps during the period.
Re Eichmann, like you I found it on the internet without a reference:
"Some accounts say that the Camp Commandant Siegfried Seidle approved the designs and submitted them to Adolf Eichmann, head of the Gestapo Department of Jewish Affairs, who immediately rejected them saying Moses was too Aryan and should instead be portrayed with a prominent hooked nose and curly hair. Eichmann also required that Moses’ hand obscure the commandment “Thou shalt not kill,” and that the denominations be changed from “Ghetto Kronen” to just “Kronen.”
Another account has Kien initially submitting his designs to the camp commandant, who then submitted them to the SS second in command, Reinhard Heydrich, (SS Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia), who rejected them. Heydrich also is recorded as saying that he thought that Moses looked too Aryan, and lacked the strongly stereotyped Semitic features that conformed to the Nazi vision of Jewish appearance. Whichever version is correct, the result was that the designs went back to Kien to be changed."
.....no mention of source or of where this was "recorded".
There is a huge problem, and I am sure you have found it also, with oft repeated references & sources that go unchecked from one publication to another that become the accepted narrative but actually just compound error after error.
I did wonder at first if the Heydrich story was made up by those involved in the Czechoslovakian State Bank as a cover for its own anti-Semitic interpretation of the original Kien drawing, however I do not know anything about the collaboration of Czechoslovakian administrators with the German occupiers or what political or ideological affinities, if any, that might have existed between the two.
I collect, therefore I am.
Nothing in science can explain how consciousness arose from matter.
Of the 2, Heydrich I could believe, but I have doubts on any Eichmann connection.
William
"Much that once was, is lost. For none now live who remember it."
Similar Threads
Bookmarks