Frederick Terna Obituary, Death – Frederick Terna, ICMGLT honorary board member has passed away. Julia Mayer’s deeply personal examination of Fred Terna’s role in surviving four concentration camps; his post-WWII marriage to his emotionally scarred childhood sweetheart — a fellow survivor; their escape to France, Canada, and the United States; their divorce; and his subsequent happy marriage to a survivor’s daughter and the family they created is Painting Resilience. Painting Resilience is Julia Mayer’s memoir. Mayer wrote the memoir Painting Resilience. After meeting Fred Terna, a painter who survived the Holocaust, she was inspired to write the book.
Julia and Fred have been friends since she was a child. Julia went to Fred’s studio and art archive for the first time when she was in her early twenties. At the time, Fred had been alive for 91 years. Fred patiently answered many of Julia’s questions by recounting stories that he was already familiar with. He’d written these stories in advance of Q&A sessions following lectures and interviews with journalists. “He insisted the story wasn’t interesting and politely declined to answer my questions,” Julia said to Fred after she pressed him on the specifics of how he returned to Prague after the war’s end.
Julia is intrigued by Fred’s skills and wants to learn more about them, as well as how he came to acquire them, when he is quoted as saying that he was lucky to survive the ordeal, but it takes skill to live with it. She claims that the idea for this book came to her at that exact moment. More than two dozen reproductions of Fred’s works are included in this collection, as well as personal photographs taken by Daniel Terna, Fred’s son and a photographer. The proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated entirely to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which houses the most extensive collection of Fred’s artwork. The funeral will take place the following Sunday, December 11, at 10:00 a.m., at Kane Street Synagogue, 236 Kane Street, Brooklyn, New York 11231.