Hans, Olga and Felix

Austrian passports with Nazi government stamps belonging to the artist’s grandparents, Hans and Olga Breuer. In 1938 they escaped Nazi subjugation fleeing to America, leaving behind their extended Breuer family, all of whom perished. A November 1938 farewell letter to departed son Hans was sent from Vienna by his father Felix Breuer. Handwritten in difficult to read old-fashioned Sütterlin script, it conveys the gravity of separation. Hans and Felix kept up a continuous written correspondence for nearly three years until the letters from Vienna ceased arriving in 1941.