As a Hungarian Jew, Ágnes Lukács was deported to Auschwitz in July 1944. She arrived in Hausberge at the beginning of 1945 via a satellite camp of the Groß-Rosen concentration camp. Her artistic talent was already evident in her early youth. After liberation, she worked as an artist and teacher. Her time in the camps had a lasting influence on her artistic work.
"But often we had nothing to do there, for example there were no raw materials available. The interesting thing is that we were there with Dutch women. Before they came to the camp, they had already worked in Holland under German supervision. read more They had worked in the Philips factory, and they recognised the Philips factory's production facilities. [...] We were supposed to make radio tubes there. But everything was pretty much finished there. From time to time, some supervisor would visit the factory, and then the foremen would run around frantically trying to make it look like everyone was working hard. [...]" read less
Interview with Ágnes Lukács in 1992, Archive of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial. Quote translated from German.
Passport photo of Ágnes Lukács from the year 1948.
Source: Archive of the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial
Biography
Ágnes Lukács was born in Budapest on 11 November 1920. Her father was the painter Gyula Lukács and her great artistic talent was recognised early on. Her first works were exhibited at the age of five. After leaving school, she studied at the Budapest Academy of Fine Arts from 1939 to 1944 and graduated with a degree in art education.
read moreDeportation to Auschwitz
The deportations of Hungarian Jews to German concentration and extermination camps began in the spring of 1944. Ágnes Lukács sought work in a soap factory in the hope that her employment there would protect her from deportation. Nevertheless, she was arrested on 3 July 1944 and subsequently transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau via a transit camp.In Auschwitz
After a short time in Auschwitz, Ágnes Lukács was given a position in the camp registry. Her artistic talent was also noticed by the SS guards on site, whereupon she was chosen for this coveted position. After a few months in Auschwitz, she was transferred to forced labour in the Reichenbach subcamp of the Groß-Rosen concentration camp. Here she had to work for the first time in a production plant for radio tubes.On foot over the Owl mountains
In mid-February 1945, hundreds of Jewish women and girls from Reichenbach had to set off on an evacuation march across the Owl Mountains in the middle of the persistent winter, including Ágnes Lukács. In Trutnov, the survivors of the march were put on a train. Their destination was the Hausberge satellite camp of Neuengamme concentration camp. Ágnes Lukács was again forced to produce radio tubes underground in the so-called "Hammerwerke", in this case for the Philips company. She stayed in East Westphalia for about a month before the camps were cleared and she was transported to Salzwedel via Fallersleben. US Army soldiers liberated her there on 14 April 1945.Artist & teacher
When she returned to Budapest in July 1945, Ágnes Lukács saw her parents again. They had not been deported to a concentration camp, but had survived the ghetto in Budapest. After a short time, she began working as a teacher. In 1946, pictures in which she thematised her experiences in Auschwitz were published under the title "Auschwitz Noi Tabor". She worked as a teacher until 1977, but continued to create art in parallel and after the end of her teaching career. Although her paintings repeatedly referred to the persecution under National Socialism, it was by no means her only creative theme.Ágnes Lukács died in Budapest on 12 September 2016 at the age of 95.
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