Jacob Barosin Collection

Jacob Barosin (1906-2001) was born Jacob Judey on 3 January 1906 to Russian Jews Hermann and Olga Judey. His German birth certificate indicates that he was born in Berlin, but biographical statements throughout the collection indicate he was born in Riga, Latvia (then part of Russia). In any case, he grew up in Berlin and attended the Schiller Real Gymnasium and then the Berlin Kunst Akademie. He studied applied art and art history at the University of Berlin and earned a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Freiburg (1930). In 1927, he married Sonia Finkel in Charlottenburg, Berlin. Sonia was born in Tighina, Moldova, in 1904.

Sensing danger, in 1933 the couple emigrated from Germany to Paris, where they adopted the surname Barosin. Early in 1943 they were arrested and sent to the deportation camp in Gurs. They were freed by French authorities and went into hiding until their liberation in 1944 in Paris. In 1947 they immigrated to the United States, settling in Kew Gardens, NY in 1950.

Barosin actively engaged in an artistic career in the United States. He had a particular interest in religious themes, inspired by a Bible that he and Sonia read while in hiding in France. Among many other things, he illustrated the Jewish Family Bible and a well-known religious film strip, and painted eighteen life-size prophets and a large mural of Jesus. He also worked as an illustrator for NBC-TV for 15 years.

Barosin’s wife Sonia died in 1973. In December 1976, Barosin married his second wife, Natalie (neé Stein), who died in 2006.

His original sketchbook of Gurs is permanently with Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. His memoir “A Remnant,” describing his life in France during the Holocaust, was published in 1988.