Carol Deutch, 99 Paintings for Chamishah Chumshei Torah, Limited Facsimile Edition. Jerusalem, 2008

Carol Deutch, 99 Paintings for Chamishah Chumshei Torah, Limited Facsimile Edition. Jerusalem, 2008
Exact replica of the illustrated chumash created by Flemish Jewish artist Carol Deutch in Belgium during the Nazi occupation.
Carol Deutch (1894-1944) was a Flemish Jewish artist who spent about a year in Israel 1935-36, where he painted several large landscape pictures later presented at an exhibition in Belgium. After the German conquest in 1940, Deutch's home was destroyed in a bombing. He attempted to flee to the United States with his family, but did not succeed. He began illustrating biblical verses in 1941 in a collection specially prepared for his only daughter's, Ingrid's, second birthday. Deutch created ninety-nine large-scale paintings depicting events and figures in chamishah chumshei Torah. Carol and his wife, Fela, were caught in 1943 because of informers, and they were deported to Auschwitz, where Fela found her death. Carol was later transferred to to Sachsenhausen and then to Buchenwald, where he died in 1944 from exhaustion and disease. Their daughter Ingrid was hidden with her grandmother in a Catholic farmer's home, and she survived the war. Ingrid and her grandmother returned to their home in Antwerp after the war, where they found it completely looted of everything valuable except for the wooden box containing these 99 paintings. Ingrid later immigrated to the United States. She donated the box to Yad Vashem in 1982.
Each one of the ninety-nine paintings has the verse it is depicting written at the bottom in three languages: Hebrew, English and French. Deutch also made the large engraved wooden box, which served as something of a safe for the paintings. He carved Jewish symbols on the box such as his name and the name of the work.
In 2008 Yad Vashem published a limited edition of 500 copies of an exact replica of this chumash, including the carved wooden box. Before us is copy number 8.
The portfolio includes a box, a silk print on art paper, [98] offset-printed illustrations and a booklet by Yad Vashem about Carol Deutch's work. Box size: 33x44 cm.
Very fine condition.