Evening Twilight, Moonrise (Sylt),
1910
Oilpainting on wood by Franz Korwan
Korwan once phrased his artistic
perspective this way: "For me,
the motif is never to be found in
objective things, but mostly in the
air or in the allure of colors,
primarily and almost exclusively
the way they appear at the North
Sea. Nothing shows the logical
consistency of nature's laws more
than the sea. One can paint it only
when one has understood the
inner connections, just as a doctor
must thoroughly know and master
the anatomy of the body."
The year 1920 marked a turning point in the life of Franz
Korwan alias Sally Katzenstein. He withdrew from public life
for private and personal reasons. But in the 1930s his voluntary
withdrawal became an imposed isolation. With Hitler's takeover
in 1933, a dreadful life began for Korwan. All the
accomplishments he had achieved for the island were forgotten.
Suddenly only his parentage still mattered.
With the start of the Nazi regime Korwan and his life partner
were increasingly shunned. After the National Socialists had first
expelled the Jewish spa guests, the attacks were soon directed
against the few Jews residing on Sylt. In 1937 Franz Korwan,
with his life partner Else Saenger, left the island in order to be
able to withdraw into the masses of a large town. However,
neither in Wiesbaden nor in Baden-Baden could they find the
hoped-for protection. In 1940 both were arrested in Baden-Baden and deported. The National Socialists turned Franz
Korwan back into Sally Katzenstein.
His last exhibit on the island took place in 1934. Six decades
later, in April/May 1993, after many previously futile efforts, the
Keitum Heimatmuseum [local museum] mounted another exhibit
of paintings by Franz Korwan, which was realized thanks to the
dogged research over many years by the teacher Joachim
Pleines and the president of the Sylt Friends of Art, Elke Harms.
In the context of the exhibit opening, Korwan researcher Pleines
said: "In answer to the hypothetical question as to whether
Korwan would have survived here (on Sylt), it must not be
forgotten that three of the local assimilated Jews were
condemned to imprisonment in concentration camps, from
which two did not return. If we view Korwan only as a painter,
we would not do justice to his person and we would have had a
hand, 60 years after the [Nazi] takeover, in suppressing a
painful part of the history of Sylt."
