Marianne Grant
Marianne "Mausi" Grant (19 September 1921 – 11 December 2007) was a Czech-Scottish Jewish artist, who survived the
Holocaust after being imprisoned in three successive concentration camps. Grant was born during the interwar period and came from a prosperous family. From a young age, Grant loved drawing and painting but her plans to study art at university were stymied after the invasion of
Czechoslovakia in March 1939 by
Nazi Germany. In June 1939, the
Nuremberg racial laws were implemented and Grant and her family faced increasingly stringent restrictions that lead them to be
interred at a camp in Prague and then later deported to the
Theresienstadt Ghetto in May 1942. Grant spent 18 months in the ghetto before being transferred to
Auschwitz concentration camp. In Auschwitz, Grant used her painting skills in exchange for food and medicine and to make the children's block where she worked, more homely. However, her work come to the notice of
Josef Mengele, who used Grant to paint family trees of dwarfs and twins. After 7 months, Grant was sent to forced labour battalion and later
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. When she was liberated, she was sent to Sweden to recuperate and met her future husband. They married and settled in Glasgow. After the war, she finished her education at the
Glasgow School of Art. In 2002, Grant's paintings and drawings were exhibited at
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. 22 members of Grant's family died in the Holocaust.
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