Deaf Art Collections: Bloch, David

Video courtesy of Deaf Art website by Patti Durr. David Ludwig Bloch was born on March 25, 1910 in Germany. He lost his hearing as a child due to meningitis. He learned the trade of porcelain painter and later worked as a decorator and graphic designer in advertising. He was one of 10,911 Jewish men deported to the Dachau concentration camp in the wake of the “Night of Broken Glass”. Bloch was especially vulnerable to the harassment and violence reigning in the camp due to his impairment. After a month in the Dachau camp he was released and managed to emigrate in 1940 on the last ship to leave Venice for Shanghai.

In 1949 he moved to New York where he worked for 26 years as an art lithographer. He returned to Germany in 1976. After visiting the Dachau Memorial Site he tried to artistically work through and come to terms with the Holocaust and his personal experiences in the Dachau Concentration Camp. David Ludwig Bloch died in the United States on September 16, 2002.