Angelica Bäumer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Angelica Bäumer | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 13 January 1932 |
| Died | 18 July 2025 (aged 93) |
| Burial place | Hietzing Cemetery, Vienna, Austria |
| Alma mater | University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna University of Applied Arts Vienna |
| Occupations | Art critic, art historian, and exhibition curator |
| Employer | Österreichischer Rundfunk |
| Organization | International Association of Art Critics (AICA) |
Angelica Bäumer (13 January 1932 – 18 July 2025) was an Austrian art critic, art historian, and exhibition curator who specialised in Art Brut and photography. She was also a survivor of the Holocaust.
Bäumer was born on 13 January 1932 in Frankfurt, Hesse.[1] Her father was the German painter Eduard Bäumer [de].[2] Her mother Valerie Bäumer (née Feix) came from a Jewish Viennese family of manufacturers.[2] They met in the 1920s whilst both students of the Swiss painter Johannes Ittenat at the Städelschen Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt.[2][3][4]
Bäumer was the eldest of three children in her family.[1] Her siblings were called Michael and Bettina.[5]
Bäumer's fathers painting were considered "degenerate art" by Nazi Germans[3] and her family's assets were confiscated once the Nazi Party came to power.[6][7] Her maternal grandmother, Ida Feix, was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, Poland.[3]
Bäumer and her immediate family fled to Salzburg, Austria,[6] as it was safer there than in Germany until the annexation of Austria in 1938.[3] Bäumer's mother was denounced to the Nazis by a relative in 1943[1] and she was persecuted as a "full Jew."[5] Bäumer and her two siblings were considered "mixed race" and were not allowed to attend school.[1][5] Bäumer, her mother and siblings were forced to wear the yellow Star of David and their passports were stamped with a large "J" for "Jew."[5] Her parents were forced to labour.[3]
Bäumer and her family escaped from Salzburg and fled to the village Grossarl in August 1944,[5] where they were sheltered by Austrian Catholic priest Balthasar Linsinger.[1][3][8] They sheltered in Grossarl, with false identities,[9] and Bäumer's father painted a ceiling fresco in Linsinger's church.[8] They did not have ration cards, but Bäumer and her family managed to survive the war.[10] After the war, the family returned to Salzburg,[5] where Bäumer worked supporting Jewish children who had survived the concentration camps and wanted to emigrate to Israel.[1]
Bäumer spoke about her childhood experiences in World War II as a contemporary witness at live events, schools and for recorded interviews,[10][11][12][13] including for the Witness of Our Time series.[3] She also successfully campaigned for Balthasar Linsinger to be honoured as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem and he was added to the list on 13 April 2011.[9][14][15]
Bäumer married urban planner and architecture critic Paulhans Peters.[15]
