The daughters of Joseph Bau, an artist, forger and pioneer of Israeli animation, are sharing the love story of their parents and how it transcended the trauma they endured during the Holocaust.
Bau’s daughters, Hadassa and Clila, appeared at the Book Festival of the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta on Nov. 8 for a book talk and screening of the 2025 film based on their father’s memoir, “Bau: Artist at War.”
During their Atlanta visit, the Bau sisters talked with SaportaReport and Let’s Start Healing Podcast about their parents’ extraordinary lives, their survival during the Holocaust and the sacrifices that kept them alive.
The sisters are also raising awareness and funds to relocate the Joseph Bau House Museum in Tel Aviv, which houses their father’s artwork and preserves the history of their parents’ lives. The building is slated for demolition.
Joseph and Rebecca Bau met while imprisoned at the Plaszów concentration camp near Krakow, Poland, where they secretly married. Their wedding was depicted in the 1993 film “Schindler’s List.”
“He got dressed as a woman, smuggled himself into the women’s barracks and that’s how they got married,” Clila Bau said of Joseph. His mother performed the ceremony.
A free exhibition of more than 40 of Joseph Bau’s works is on display at the Jewish Community Center through December, in partnership with the Joseph Bau House Museum.
A graphic artist born in Krakow, Joseph survived Plaszów in part because of his skills in creating maps and signs for the Germans. He also secretly forged identity papers to help fellow prisoners escape. After the war, he became a document forger for Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency.
Joseph had a profound sense of humor, and even during imprisonment lifted the spirits of fellow prisoners with jokes and humorous drawings.
“This man came to us, and he said our father saved [his] life. He said, ‘He told me that I would be a lawyer, and I am a lawyer,’” Hadassa recalled of a man who survived the concentration camp.
Rebecca also played a critical role in helping fellow prisoners. She worked as a manicurist for Amon Goeth, the brutal camp commandant. The position gave her access to information she secretly passed along to others.
“She knew nine languages… She was listening to the commandant talking to the other Nazis and she [would share] what she heard,” Clila said. “And Goeth started wondering who is telling everything. He [suspected] it must be Rebecca, and he punished her in a horrible way.”
Rebecca would later make a sacrifice that helped save her husband’s life.
When her name was placed on a list of prisoners selected to work at Oskar Schindler’s factory, she persuaded Goeth’s Jewish secretary to allow Joseph to take her place. Rebecca believed her husband’s skills made him more valuable and that she would survive.
Joseph went to Schindler’s factory while Rebecca was sent to Auschwitz.
It wasn’t until nearly 50 years later, during a press interview in the 1990s, that Joseph learned what his wife had done.
Their reunion after the war followed another extraordinary series of events, Clila said.
After liberation, Joseph, weighing just 66 pounds, set out to find Rebecca, whom he believed was hospitalized in a distant town following a truck accident.
According to his memoir, Joseph missed two train connections, including one involving a train that later plunged into a river.
His journey took another unexpected turn when a woman mistook him for a German war criminal and dragged him to a police station.
Officers realized he was a liberated concentration camp prisoner. After hearing about his search for Rebecca, one officer recalled a similar accident and suggested she might be in a nearby hospital.
Joseph discovered that Rebecca was hospitalized in that town, not the one he had been trying to reach.
The sisters describe their parents’ survival and reunion as only one of the many miracles of their lives.
After the war, Rebecca became a trusted confidante for Holocaust survivors, offering a safe place for them to share their grief, trauma and memories.
Rebecca died in 1997, followed by Joseph in 2002.
Today, the Joseph Bau House Museum occupies the Tel Aviv studio their father established in 1960. The museum welcomes visitors, including students and tourists, who learn about his artwork, animations, inventions and the couple’s experiences.
But the sisters are facing the challenge of finding a new home for the museum due to the pending demolition. They rent the space in the building.
“Only Clila and I keep the place going,” said Hadassa.
The sisters have set an initial fundraising goal of $200,000 to support a professional relocation feasibility study and business plan.
More information about the museum and its fundraising campaign is available here.
