1941, World War II: One of the first trucks that trundled into the Theresiendstadt concentration camp (Terezín), carried a little girl, Helga, who, with her family and hundreds of other victims were herded into one of history’s most cruel chapters. Yet, a flower bloomed in the barren ghetto. Helga Hoskova’s natural skill with charcoal and watercolour produced a series of works that documented the horror of a despicable regime. It became, in years to come, a moving testimony to those times.

Helga Weissová-Hosková was born in 1929 in Prague, in the family of a bank clerk and a seamstress. When Helga was ten, like other Jewish children she was ruthlessly expelled from school, but continued with a scattered education through special lessons organised by the Jewish community, and the support of her father, Otto Weiss. It was he who nurtured and encouraged Helga in her literary and artistic pursuits.