Czech students complete card game recovered from WWII Terezín ghetto

An incomplete set of cards for a game created by an unknown author during World War II in the Terezín ghetto has been made whole. Černý Petr (Black Peter), a card game recovered from the WWII ghetto, has been finished thanks to a competition involving students from across the Czech Republic.

In the competition, students from Czech schools were tasked with designing the back side of the cards and drawing a missing card for the incomplete deck. The winners were chosen by a jury led by Petr Haimann, a Holocaust survivor who brought the hand-drawn deck back from Terezín.

The art competition, Černý Petr z Terezína (Black Peter from Terezín), was organized by the Jewish Community of Brno in collaboration with the Štetl Center of Jewish Culture and the Elementary Art School on Smetanova Street in Brno.

The results were announced this weekend by Kateřina Höferová from Štetl. The jury selected the winning design for the missing card created by twelve-year-old Kateřina Šoukalová from a school in Zastávka, near Brno. The winning design for the back side of the cards was drawn by seventeen-year-old Miriam Žáčková from Pilsen.

Nearly 650 designs from across the country were submitted to the Jewish Community of Brno from 113 institutions, including schools, children's homes, and leisure centers. The task was not to replicate the original author's style but to capture a sense of imaginative escape.

Haimann, originally from Brno, was deported to Terezín with his parents in 1941 at the age of three. He remained there until the camp's liberation in 1945. Drawing and creative activities played a crucial role during his time in the camp.

Besides his own drawings, Haimann brought back to Brno the works of those who were deported from Terezín to extermination camps, including the card game created by an unknown author.

The hand-colored ink drawings on small cardboard cards consist of 14 pairs, plus a central Black Peter figure and one incomplete pair. The illustrations depict various professions as well as figures from the fantasy world.

The Jewish Community of Brno will now produce the cards as a full set available for sale, bringing the game back to life. An exhibition of all the designs submitted to the competition will open on August 29 at the Institute of National Memory in Brno as part of Štetl Fest, a Jewish cultural festival. The exhibition will also feature a retrospective of Haimann’s work, including his childhood drawings from Terezín.

More information about the Černý Petr card game can be found at the website of the Štetl Center of Jewish Culture.