Felix Nussbaum (1904-1944), The Refugee, 1939, Oil on canvas

Felix Nussbaum was born in Osnabruek, Germany, studied and exhibited in Hamburg, Berlin and Rome. He emigrated to Belgium in 1934, and from there went to France. In 1940, he was arrested and sent to the camps of Saint Cyprien and Gurs. Nussbaum escaped from these camps several times, and lived in hiding in Brussels until he was caught in 1944 and sent to Auschwitz, where he perished.

At the outset of World War II, while interned in a transit camp, Nussbaum painted a man sitting at a long table with a globe at its center. This picture attempts to relay the artist's feeling of being at a dead end. At that time, Nussbaum was incarcerated in Saint Cyprien, remote from Germany, his homeland, to which he could not return. The whole world embodied by the globe with the map of Europe facing us, is large and threatening, casting a dark shadow on the wooden table. There are many countries on the face of the earth, but their gates are locked to the Jewish refugee. The world has no solution for the refugee Felix Nussbaum. He is the man sitting in the little room, his nomad's stick and bundle of belongings by his feet, and he buries his head in his hands in despair, for he has no way out. This room has no windows, the walls are bare, similar to a prison cell, and the only opening leads to a bleak vista - a tree shedding its leaves and ravens circling in the skies - a sign of imminent death. Even when outside the camp, beyond the bars and barbed wire, there is no hope and no safe haven for the Jew - he is destined to die.