Ludovit Feld exhibit at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County.
Ludovit Feld was born to Jewish parents in Kosice, Czechoslovakia on March 19, 1904. He was the only dwarf out of eight siblings. He began studying art in 1916. Upon graduating, he attended the Academy of Fine Art in Budapest, Hungary. There, he was trained by Victor Olgyai Martika and Lajos Nandor Varga. He held his first exhibition in 1933. In 1935, he founded his own, private art school and several prominent artists attended, including Eckedrt Alexander, Joseph Hascak, Julius Hegyessy and Arpad Racko.
In spring 1944, he and his family were forced into the Kosice Ghetto; within a few weeks, they were all deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Dr. Josef Mengele selected him for medical experimentations and kept him alive for his artistic skills. While housed with “Mengele’s Twins,” he saved the lives of several of these children by hiding them under the floorboards. He was liberated by the Soviet Army on January 27, 1945. After liberation, Feld returned to Slovakia and in 1951, he became a member of the Slovak Association of Visual Arts. He continued to draw and teach until his death on May 18, 1991.
