At 90, Ben Altman walks slowly. He doesn’t drive anymore because his eyes aren’t so good. But at night, Altman dreams. He dreams of the wife and son murdered by the Nazis, of his own death-camp imprisonment and miraculous survival, and of a life reborn in post-war America.
Today, he vividly depicts those memories, and more, through his art.
Brightly colored paintings — most are Ben Altman originals — crowd the walls of his cheery Sunset District home. Since the former tailor retired, Altman has devoted himself to painting. He paints for self-expression, to reflect the world around him and his inner visions.
Altman’s subjects cover everything from New England landscapes to Venetian gondoliers to a simple still life of fruit in a bowl.
But some Altman paintings are not so idyllic. They depict memories of the camps. One, a tableau of barbed wire and drowning pools, recalls his torment when he finally gave up his young son for dead.
Another shows prisoners at the Graditz concentration camp seated at outdoor tables while two prisoners, hanged by the neck, swing dead from the trees.
“It isn’t easy to paint the painful past,” says the spry and talkative artist. “It takes a lot of emotion. But I want people to see what I went through. My story couldn’t come out before, but now it can.”
That’s true, as the nonagenarian celebrates his first exhibit at the Stern Gallery in San Francisco’s Jewish Family and Children’s Services offices at 2150 Post St. A collection of Altman canvases, all featuring Judaic themes, are on public view from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, Dec. 5.
It’s a fitting tribute to a painter who decided at a very young age that he would like to be an artist, but waited a very long time to do so.
Born in Czestockowa, Poland, Altman served as apprentice to his father, a tailor. By age 8, he discovered a love for art.
“I went to the buttonhole-maker on an errand,” remembers Altman. “I saw a painting on the wall and stood before it a long time. The owner said, ‘That’s the prophet Jeremiah.’ While looking at it, I decided if I become a painter, I will paint Jeremiah.”
Altman’s promised painting of the prophet now hangs on a wall in the Stern Gallery.
But long before, in 1938, Altman married and settled in Soznoweicza. He and his wife, Madzia. had a son, Marek, and lived happily until war swept across Poland, carrying them off along with countless other Jews to ghettos and concentration camps.
In 1943, while Madzia and Marek stayed behind in the ghetto, the Nazis shipped Altman to a series of labor camps, including Marksztat, Faulbreck and Graditz.
His family eventually perished in Auschwitz. But Altman hung on. “I wasn’t frightened,” he says. “I just kept out of trouble. Sometimes I felt sorry for the guards. They did the job, but they hated it. Some tried to help us, mostly by looking the other way. I’d repair their slacks, they’d give me a piece of bread. Sometimes they brought us soup, even though it was illegal. And we survived.”
While in Faulbreck, Altman met Erna, whom he would eventually marry. The day the Russian Army liberated them is captured in Altman’s moving watercolor, “Liberation,” another work now on display.
The couple moved to Munich after the war and had a son, David. In 1949 they immigrated to San Francisco. Once here, Altman established a successful business as a tailor, counting the San Francisco Opera among his customers.
The Altmans lived the American dream. David graduated from U.C. Berkeley as an engineer. Two grandchildren are now completing studies at that university, one set to become a doctor, the other a lawyer.
Altman’s longstanding dream to paint might never have come to pass had he not stumbled upon an art class at the JCC of S.F.’s Montefiore Senior Center. Once he picked up a paintbrush, he’s hardly been able to put it down.
Today Altman lives alone (Erna died in 1989), and his basement studio overflows with canvases. Off to the corner, his sewing machine sits idle, but the easel nearby always props up a work in progress.
In addition to painting, Altman enjoys spending time with friends at Café by the Bay, a weekly Holocaust survivor group sponsored JFCS.
Some months ago, program coordinator Cherie Golant discovered Altman’s gifts. “I spent a lot of time in his garage looking at paintings,” she recalls. “I was at a loss, wondering how to help this man achieve his dream.”
Then it occurred to her that an exhibit of his paintings should inaugurate the Stern Gallery. “People are really excited about it. Ben has such a generous heart. He’s so happy we’ve been able to do this for him.”
Says Altman, “One thing I learned is: You can’t escape your destiny, I guess. I was supposed to paint.”