Karel Švenk


Karel Švenk, sometimes referred to in German as Karl Schwenk, was a Czech cabaret artist, comedian, songwriter and writer. A leading figure in the cabaret at the Theresienstadt concentration camp, a "show" concentration camp for artists, Svenk was eventually sent to Auschwitz and later died on a subsequent transport to Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp.
Karel's parents were Rudolf Schwenk and Klara Koráleková, both were killed in Auschwitz concentration camp presumably shortly after their arrived on the 9th October 1944. Karel had three sisters - Erna, Lili, Ottilie as well as a younger brother Otta. Only Ottilie survived the holocaust and emigrated to the US with her husband Rudolf Wenzel Köegler and son Heinrich Frederick Köegler. Ottilie died on the 9th April 1996 in Ramsey County, Minnesota.

Biography

Švenk was one of the members of the avant-garde Klub zapadlých talentů in Prague. He was one of the first artists to be deported to Terezín on November 24, 1941, and was among the 342 young Jewish men sent to prepare the previously non-Jewish camp for the Jewish artist inmates to follow. In the autumn of 1942 he appeared in passing in the propaganda film Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet, standing with the puppetteer Otto Neumann and the dancer Kamila Rosenbaumová. Svenk was sent to Auschwitz, then briefly to a factory, and later died in a cattle wagon on a subsequent transport to Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp.

Compositions