Frank Meisler
Frank Meisler (* 1925 in Danzig , Free City of Danzig ; † March 24, 2018 in Jaffa ) was a German - British - Israeli architect and sculptor .
Life
Frank Meisler grew up in Danzig, which had been separated from the German Reich as a free state since 1919. His father ran a small transport business, which he had to relocate to the other side of the border, to Poland, under anti-Semitic pressure from the National Socialists . At the end of August 1939, his parents and 14 other Jewish children were able to enable him to escape on the last of the three child transports from Danzig. The three-day train journey was accompanied by a member of the Jewish community and a Gestapo policeman on the German route and ran via Berlin-Friedrichstrasse to Hoek van Holland and from there to Liverpool Street Station in London . His parents were arrested three days after his departure, later deported to the Warsaw ghetto and murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp . His mother's two sisters and his grandmother lived in London, and they had fled Germany a few years earlier. Frank Meisler grew up here. He learned nothing more from his parents, the information circulating in Great Britain about the situation in the concentration camps and about the extermination of the Jews led the youth to come to the bitter realization that he was an orphan (“I'm an orphan”).
After the end of World War II , Meisler studied architecture at Manchester University . After graduating, he was involved in the construction of Heathrow Airport , among other things . In 1956 he moved to Israel , where he settled in the old city of Jaffa and also ran a sculpture studio. In addition to Jaffa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Meisler's works can be found in New York , Moscow , San Juan (Argentina) , Gdansk, London and Berlin . His sculptures are in public space . The personal experience of the transport of children led Meisler to finally create impressive bronze sculptures on this subject .
Meisler died on March 24, 2018 in Jaffa. His grave is in the Givat Brenner cemetery .
Awards
- In 1999 Meisler was awarded the "Franz Kafka" gold medal by the Czech Academy of Fine Arts .
- In 2002 he received honorary doctorates from the Russian and Ukrainian Academy of Arts .
- In 2012 Frank Meisler was awarded the Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his services to German-Jewish and German-Israeli relations . He received the award from Andreas Michaelis , the German ambassador in Tel Aviv .
- In 2014, Meisler was awarded the title of Honorary Ambassador for the City of Gdańsk in Israel by the Gdańsk City President Paweł Adamowicz .
- In 2018 , a bilingual memorial plaque was unveiled at Meisler's parents' house, the corner house Langgasse / Große Wollwebergasse.
Works (selection)
Architecture and art in general
- Israel: Monument to David Ben-Gurion
- after 1987: memorial in front of the Mannheim synagogue , a monument made of stones from the main synagogue that was blown up in 1938 commemorates the victims of the persecution of the Jewish people
- 1998: Interior design of the Moscow Memorial Synagogue
- 1999: Foyer, prayer room and Torah shrine in the Golden Rose Synagogue (Dnipro)
- 2008: Statue of Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference in Sochi
- 2011 Memorial in Jantarny : the sky stretched hands to commemorate the massacre of Palm nod to some 3,000 Jewish female inmates of the satellite camp of Stutthof concentration camp in January 1945
- 2009: Eternal Kiev , Kiev
- Monument to Christopher Columbus in Madrid
- Fountain in Jerusalem.
Sculpture groups for the Kindertransport
Meisler's groups of sculptures, created from personal experience, show similarities as well as different design details and have meanwhile become the European “route” of the Kindertransporte.
- 2006: On the initiative of Prince Charles there is a memorial for the Kindertransport at Liverpool Street Station in London, where the Jewish children from Germany arrived, see Kindertransport - The Arrival
- 2008: Memorial Trains to Life - Trains to Death: 1938–1939 at Berlin-Friedrichstrasse station for the rescue of 10,000 Jewish children who traveled from here to London. The memorial was inaugurated on November 30, 2008.
- 2009: At the request of Gdansk Mayor Paweł Adamowicz, Frank Meisler designed another group of sculptures for the Kindertransport in May 2009, which reminds of 124 departing children, see Kindertransport - The Departure in Danzig.
- 2011: Kindertransport - Channel Crossing to Life in Hoek van Holland - Memorial for the rescued Jewish children
- 2015: Kindertransport - The last farewell , at Dammtor train station , Hamburg
Publications
- On the Vistula Facing East. German, London 1996, ISBN 0-233-99022-4 .
- Miłosława Borzyszkowska-Szewczyk (Ed.): Zaułkami pamięci. Gdańsk - Londyn - Jaffa. trans. into Polish v. Agata Teperek et al. Andrzej Szewczyk. Instytut Kaszubski, Gdańsk 2014, ISBN 978-83-63368-40-1 .
- Miłosława Borzyszkowska-Szewczyk, Uwe Neumärker (ed.): On the Vistula towards the east. My life between Gdansk, London and Jaffa . Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe with the Instytut Kaszubski w Gdańsku, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-942240-24-6 .
Web links
- Artist's website
- Take the train to freedom. Thousands of Jewish children escaped to England from Friedrichstrasse station in 1938/39. In: Der Tagesspiegel . August 16, 2008.
- Kindertransport: Children who fled the Nazis to Britain. Interview. at BBC, June 26, 2013
Individual evidence
- ↑ Frank Meisler, Interview, BBC, June 26, 2013.
- ^ Sculptor Frank Meisler has died. In: Berliner Zeitung . March 27, 2018, p. 13.
- ^ Mourning for Frank Meisler. In: Jüdische Allgemeine. March 25, 2018. Retrieved March 25, 2018.
- ↑ Biography on the homepage ( Memento from January 10, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Message ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the website of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Tel Aviv (Hebrew)
- ↑ Honorowi Ambasadorowie Gdańska - Wybrzeze24.pl. Retrieved March 30, 2018 (pl-PL).
- ↑ Przejrzyście i czytelnie - nowy system tablic pamiątkowych. Retrieved February 3, 2019 (pl-PL).
- ^ The occasion was the 5th world meeting of the Danzigers.
- ↑ Craig A. Spiegel: Returning 'home' after fleeing on the Kindertransport. In: Cleveland Jewish News. August 14, 2009 (English).
- ↑ 3 pictures from the sculpture group in Gdańsk
- ^ Foundation Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe: »On the Vistula towards the East. My life between Danzig, London and Jaffa «by Frank Meisler - reading with Alexander Beyer on December 8, 2016. Accessed on May 11, 2017.
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Meisler, Frank |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-British-Israeli architect and sculptor |
DATE OF BIRTH | 1925 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Danzig |
DATE OF DEATH | March 24, 2018 |
Place of death | Jaffa |