Gershon Iskowitz

Gershon Iskowitz (November 21, 1921 – January 26, 1988) was a Canadian artist of Jewish background originally from Poland. Iskowitz was a Holocaust survivor of the Kielce Ghetto, who was liberated at Buchenwald. He began his artistic career as an expressionist painter who dealt with figurative subjects. He later painted in the abstract expressionist style professedly inspired by the Canadian landscape.

Iskowitz was born in Kielce, in the Second Polish Republic. At the age of four he was sent to the Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva. He became bored and began drawing. After a year and a half he begged his father, Shmiel Yankl, to be allowed to return home and was given permission to do so. He was tutored in Polish and placed in a public school. After two and a half years his father set up a small studio area for him in their home and allowed him to spend his time drawing and painting. At the age of nine he exchanged original art posters for free admission to a local cinema.

He registered at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in 1939. But war broke out before he began classes so he had to return to Kielce and was put to forced labour. In September 1943 the Kielce Ghetto was burned. Gershon and his brother, Yosl, were sent to Auschwitz.

Gershon painted or drew at night only after every one else was asleep. He said "Why did I do it? I think it kept me alive. There was nothing to do. I had to do something in order to forget the hunger. It's very hard to explain, but in the camp painting was a necessity for survival." He was transferred to Buchenwald in the fall of 1944. Near the end of the war he tried to escape but was seriously wounded. After the April 11 liberation of Buchenwald he was sent to recuperate in hospitals for about nine months.

From January to May 1947 he attended the Academy of Fine Arts Munich and had private study with Oskar Kokoschka who painted in intense expressionistic style.

Gershon's first application to move to Canada was rejected because he had a limp. "Always when my life was in danger," Iskowitz found "I did a drawing and pulled through." He reapplied and drew a picture for the bureaucrat in immigration. The fellow declared Gershon a genius, predicted a great future for him in Canada, approved his emigration application and said that Gershon would have special privileges on the voyage to his new home. Thus in 1949 he emigrated to Canada to stay with some relatives living in Toronto.

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