Arie Tabak was born in Sighet, Romania in 1922. He found work as a printer in Budapest in 1943 until he was forced to escape home only to find himself living in a ghetto with his sister and two children. They were sent to Auschwitz in 1944 where his sister and children were murdered. He eventually ended up in Ebensee Labor Camp in Austria where he was freed in May 1945. After a few years in a German DP camp he went to Israel in 1948 with his wife, Helen, and son, Chaim. The family immigrated to Brooklyn, New York in 1960 and Arie passed away in 2005.
Arie’s son, Harry Tabak will discuss his father’s experiences during the Holocaust, and share about the family’s lives in Israel through art he made while living in the country.
Harry C. Tabak was born in a DP camp in Germany in 1946. Harry and his parents journeyed to Israel in 1948 after a short stint at a DP camp in Cyprus. They lived in Haifa where his brother Josh was born and immigrated to the US (Brooklyn) in 1960. He chose art as his career and went to the Art Students League of NY under the GI Bill after his military stint and Vietnam (1968-69). The Dorsky Galleries in NYC became his principal representative in 1977 and a principal supporter of his career.
Harry and his wife, artist and author Nava Atlas, moved to New Paltz, in the Hudson Valley of NY in 1983 and started their family. They have two children: Alice and Evan. Harry and Nava collaborated on an art project which traveled to numerous museums. Now she writes books and he is continuing his art.