Bau: Artist at War

Book excerpt: NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING EMILE HIRSCH, IN THEATERS FEBRUARY 2025 A classic memoir that is both an inspiring true love story and a historical espionage thriller, Bau: Artist at War comes at a critical moment when the last survivors of the German concentration camps are dying and the Holocaust is slipping from memory. Includes a foreword by Clila Bau-Cohen and Hadasa Bau and an introduction by Sean McNamara, director of the major motion picture of the same name. In a memorable scene from Steven Spielberg’s film Schindler’s List, viewers the world over witnessed the clandestine marriage of two Jews in the Płaszów concentration camp: Joseph and Rebecca Bau. At once a tale of horror and beauty, Bau: Artist at War is one man’s memoir of a miracle: the bloom of love in the depths of a Nazi concentration camp. In his painstaking prose, Joseph Bau also shares his experience of other wartime traumas—the bombing of Kraków, the brutality of the ghetto, the harsh last days at Oskar Schindler’s factory—with surprising wit and irony, a tone enhanced by his brilliant black-and-white drawings. Above all, Bau’s story is a celebration of his wife, Rebecca. Married in secret, they had a mutual devotion that fueled their humor, resiliency, and ultimate triumph in the face of unspeakable evil.