Werner Weinberg (1915-1997), a former faculty member at Cincinnati’s HUC-JIR Campus, was born on May 30, 1915 in Rheda, Germany. He served as a rabbi in Rheda until Kristallnacht, and shortly after escaped to Holland with his wife, Lisl. While in Holland, the Weinbergs had two children, Hannah and Susie. Hannah died a few years later from disease and suffering under Nazi persecution. Werner and Lisl sent Susie into hiding with a Christian family, before going into hiding themselves. The couple were eventually arrested and taken to Bergen-Belsen. Weinberg’s extraordinary survival narrative has been chronicled several times, including in his own book titled Self-Portrait of a Holocaust Survivor. The frontispiece of Weinberg’s autobiography includes this portrait that was made in May of 1944, while Weinberg was imprisoned at Bergen-Belsen.

Weinberg’s portrait was drawn in the hospital barracks by Dr. Siegfried Emmering, who had treated Werner for diphtheria. Weinberg kept the portrait with him until the liberation of Bergen-Belsen. The prisoners were ordered to leave all papers behind. Six months after leaving the camp, Weinberg’s portrait was returned to him by Regina Najman, another prisoner who had not been evacuated. The portrait was later given to the Gedenkstäte Bergen-Belsen.

In 1995 the portrait was deaccessioned by the Bergen-Belsen Museum and later donated to the collection of the Skirball Museum on the Cincinnati campus of HUC-JIR, where it remains today.