Galéria Ľudovíta Felda v Košiciach

In 2015, the Jewish Religious Community of Košice opened a gallery in the premises of the New Orthodox Synagogue on Puškinova Street, dedicated to the works of important painters of Jewish origin, including the Košice painter Ľudovít Feld.

Ľudovít Feld was born into a large Jewish family. He studied at the Košice School of Graphics and Drawing under Eugen Krón, as well as at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest. During the Second World War, he was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where, due to his short stature caused by a rare congenital disorder, he was selected among those assigned to the experiments of Dr. Mengele. Thanks to his talent, however, he became a “court painter” and an unwilling documentarian of Mengele’s cruel experiments on disabled prisoners, which saved his life.

After the war, he lived in Bratislava until 1949. He eventually returned to his native Košice, where he taught at an art school and held several exhibitions. For some time, he had a studio in the sculptor Vojtech Löffler’s workshop. Although none of his concentration camp artworks have been preserved, his post-war work reflected these tragic events. He devoted the rest of his life to drawing and painting portraits, landscapes, and scenes from his beloved city.

He died alone in seclusion in 1991 at the age of 87. He is buried in the Košice Jewish cemetery. A bronze statue of Ľudovít Feld by his personal friend, sculptor Juraj Bartusz, has been welcoming visitors in front of the synagogue since 2016.