Holocaust Survivor, Artist

Samuel Bak is cross-referenced under American Artists and Humanities / European History. He was born on August 12, 1933, in Vilna, Poland (later Lithuania). He was eight years old when the Germans invaded in 1941 and established a ghetto for the Jewish population.

Bak began painting as a child and held his first exhibition in the Vilna Ghetto in 1942, at the age of nine.

The experience of Vilna and the Holocaust profoundly shaped his work. His art reflects both his personal history as a survivor and broader themes of displacement, memory, and the human condition.

In 2017, the Samuel Bak Museum opened in his birthplace, Vilnius, at the Tolerance Center of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum, exhibiting his work and preserving a growing collection spanning his career.

From his SPI recording:

“There is so much of my art that is becoming material for teaching… I consider myself very, very lucky that I have this response.”

Samuel Bak, Holocaust Survivor, Artist

Painted in Words – A Memoir by Samuel Bak

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0:19

01. Introduction to Recording

Samuel Bak
5:38

02. Vilna Poland 1933

Samuel Bak
7:14

03. This Thing Called War

Samuel Bak
9:32

04. The Convent of the Benedictine Sisters

Samuel Bak
11:06

05. The Children's Action

Samuel Bak
9:14

06. The Escape

Samuel Bak
9:21

07. The Russian Army

Samuel Bak
10:21

08. Arrival in Israel

Samuel Bak
4:54

09. Speaking the Unspeakable

Samuel Bak
6:25

10. Return to Germany and Durer

Samuel Bak