ng The Mystery
range Painting

ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Ms. Zetter did leave Dachau
with something else, though. It
was here that she noticed "a
trend that was very disturbing,"
she said. It began with a pam-
phlet describing residents near-
by as completely ignorant of what
was going on at the death camp.
"And of course those who did
know helped the prisoners," it
said.
Later, she would meet with cit-
izens who said they knew noth-
ing of what happened in the war.
In Weiden, Germany, Ms.
Zetter visited the site of what she
thinks was Aczel's last home.
Once a house with a small shack
behind, it is today a new, three-
story office building.
Her next stop was Hungary,
where Ms. Zetter found yet an-
other piece in this curious puzzle.
In the Budapest archives, she dis-
covered birth and circumcision
records for a Deszo Aczel. The
records showed he had been born
Deszo Austerlitz and changed his
name in 1908.
Ms. Zetter also visited Csokoly,
a small Hungarian town where
Aczel once lived. It was a village
where nothing seemed real, she
said.
"It was like a dream, with peo-
ple sitting around and riding
bikes, doing nothing. I had no
sense of anyone doing any work.
There was no sense of urgency
about anything."
Here she met a man in his
mid-20s who took her to a Jew-
ish cemetery behind his home.
The house, like all those around
it, was flat, nondescript, with a
chicken coop in back.
"We went about one mile into
the fields to the edge of the
woods," she recalled. The small
cemetery was in a terrible state
of disrepair, with stones — the
Hebrew inscriptions still legible
despite the harsh hand of time —
all overturned. Weeds grew
everywhere.
owned the painting for a number
"We used to play ball here," the
young man told her.
of years.
She found no Aczels or Auster-
Ms. Zetter also met with nu-
merous survivors and historians litzes.
and was interviewed on televi-
Ms. Zetter couldn't help but
sion. She hopes to secure a place contrast this pathetic site with
for the painting at Yad Vashem. the Christian cemetery in
Ms. Zetter's second stop was Szokoly. It was well-maintained,
Dachau, where she believes Aczel clearly regularly cared for, she
might have been interred. She said.
found his name in the records
Before Ms. Zetter left the vil-
there, but with no further infor- lage, the young man told her he
had never met a Jew. Then he
mation.

`There were a lot of Aczels, but
everal years ago, a University of
Michigan student named Bara not the one I was looking for," she
Zetter walked into a room at a says.
She did, however, manage to
friend's home in Jerusalem.
Nothing has been the same since. find information about Charlotte
Ms. Zetter was traveling in Is- and Bernard Kluger, the couple
rael when she visited the house with whom she believes Aczel
of an art dealer who owned a spent the last months of his life.
She learned that the Klugers
massive painting— it covered an
entire wall — showing Hitler as had a son, Salo, now living some-
the angel of death. And below where in the United States.
him: hundreds of bodies of Jews, Bernard and Charlotte Kluger
their dark eyes opened in terror. were natives of Poland who set-
Little is known about the tled in Florida after the war and

Bara Zetter:
Haunted by a
painting.

painting (except, perhaps, the
artist's name: Deszo Aczel). But
ever since she first saw the work
Ms. Zetter, who has since gradu-
ated from U-M, has been mes-
merized.
In her continuing efforts to
learn more about the piece and
Deszo Aczel, Ms. Zetter recently
traveled to Europe and Israel.
Her first stop was to research files
at Yad Vashem, Israel's Holo-
caust Memorial.

brought to his lips the Magen
David Ms. Zetter wears around
her neck. 'Tye always felt I should
have been born a Jew," he said.
One of the most remarkable co-
incidences occurred while Ms.
Zetter was in Hungary. An ac-
quaintance chanced to visit a book
fair where she happened to pick
up one of the few Jewish books on
display. Called Seed of Sara, it is
the story of a Jew from Kaposvar,
another town where Aczel lived. C\
Ms. Zetter opened the book
and did not stop until she had
read it all. Among those men-
tioned briefly was a university
professor, also from Kaposvar.
Ms. Zetter decided to call him.
The professor urged her to con-
tact one of his students he
thought might be helpful. The
student in turn led Ms. Zetter to
a former colleague, who gave her
the phone number for Aczel's son.
Deszo Aczel, she learned, had
had two sons. One perished in
Auschwitz. The other lived in Bu-
dapest.
It could have been the discov-
ery she had been working toward
for so long. Instead, it only added 1
to the mystery.
Aczel's son was intrigued by
Ms. Zetter's research; much of it
was documentation he hadn't
even known existed. But he
couldn't believe his father was the
man for whom she had been
searching.
Deszo Aczel, the young man
said, was a pharmacist who nev-
er even lifted a paintbrush.
Ms. Zetter is not giving up. She
has returned to the United States
and is awaiting information
archivists and researchers in Eu-
rope promised to send. She hopes
to find a phone number for Salo
Kluger. Perhaps his parents told
him something of the mysterious
artist.
If she can raise enough mon-
ey, Ms. Zetter would like to re-
turn to Europe to continue her
work.
"Maybe there's nothing. Maybe
the painting is all this man left,"
she said. "But I still believe there
has to be someone out there who
will say, 'I knew a Deszo Aczel
who did this painting' — and that
will be the beginning of unravel-
ing this whole mystery."

OD For information, contact

Bara Zetter, 3 Timber Rd., Edi-
son, NJ 08820.

